Synapses
by BluePhyre
Summary: The suicide of Sherlock leaves his associate and only friend, Dr. Watson, crippled and depressed. To save him, Holmes assumes the role he's avoided for years: the omniscient puppeteer. He is Moriarty. He will be, for John. Jocklock, Post-Reichenbach.
1. The Sound of Silence

**Title: **Synapses

**Author: **BluePhyre

**Characters: **Johnlock, basically the entire crew

**Rating: **T, for the moment

**Genre: **Angst, Adventure

**Summary: **The suicide of Sherlock leaves his associate and only friend, Dr. Watson, crippled and depressed. To save him, Holmes assumes the role he's carefully avoided for years. Criminal. Puppeteer. He is Moriarty. He will be, for John. Jocklock, Post-Reichenbach.

**Disclaimer: I do not own any version of Sherlock Holmes, and the lyrics below belong to Motion City Soundtrack, not me.**

**Author's Notes: **Hey :D First Sherlock fic, hopefully to be a successful epic. I know post-Reichenbach is the most explored part of the fandom so far, but for good reason. It's really fun to play with and plot, so any good Sherlock writer must have their go at it, right? This is my attempt. Bear with me, please. And review! That'd be brilliant. Inspiring, actually.

If you want a nice, proper playlist for reading this fic, I suggest you look up ViolinistBAKA on youtube or tumblr. All of the Dr. Who/Sherlock/Star Trek violin covers have inspired me so much :D Add Rainymood and that's precisely what I listened to for hours on end while writing. That, plus endless Teavana, is basically my method dissected for writing this particular fanfic. Must channel Sherlock.

Mmph. Sorry if my author's note is a bit long. Especially in comparison to the prologue, which is quite short. I'll make up for it with the following chapters, though, so no worries! Thanks for being interested in my fanfic, and have a good read. Kai? Kai.

* * *

><p>"<em>I barely have the motivation<br>They say I suffer from_

_A lack of serotonin_

_Synapses, they happen_

_Too infrequently for me_

_To be functioning properly."_

* * *

><p><strong>Prologue: The Sound of Silence<strong>

His violin. That's what he has ventured back to 221B Baker Street for. Faking death, defying the logic of all of England – that had been the easy bit of all of this. But what had proven to be difficult was the "note" he left and the aftermath of it all. And how on earth could Sherlock be expected – though, the expectations come only from the depths of his own mind these days – to riddle it all out without his precious violin? It was the only irreplaceable part of his entire lifestyle. Well, he had thought so. Before John.

Molly had refused to fetch the instrument for him. Probably has something to do with guilt. She suffers from the dreadful, pitted, queasy emotion these days because of her role in Sherlock's great deception. She had succeeded in sobbing her way through the wake, if only to make sure the open-casket show went swimmingly, fooled everyone. She had refused to attend the funeral. Sherlock couldn't say that he had expected a large showing, but the assembly of seven was humbling. A standard coffin requires six pallbearers, and Anderson had been the last to be dragged into the service after Watson, Mycroft, Lestrade, Angelo, and Henry Knight. Mrs. Hudson had followed them, handkerchief in hand as she sniffled over her lost tenant. Sherlock had watched as they all departed quickly, leaving John to his tears. Best friend...

He stored John's speech away for later reference. No clue as to where in his mind palace those words belong, they lurk now in a room created solely for stupid things Watson's done. The emotions, while lukewarm at best for an average human, brought Sherlock to hysteria. He was above feeling. Why, then, as he listened to John, did his deep lumbic system argue otherwise? He should have let the puppy-faced soldier be gunned down. It would have been so much easier. Then, Sherlock would be able to handle the emotions. Or perhaps, then, he really would have killed himself.

That has to be the absence of his violin speaking. Sherlock knows saving John – oh, yes, Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson as well – was the only thing to do. After all, he still has his life. They still have theirs. And really, how hard could it be to regain his semi-positive role in the media? First, though, he must destroy the three assassins. Yes – that's the plan. But retrieving his violin is necessary.

It can't be any violin but his own. It is this one that punctuates every moment of his routine. His all-important routine. Don't eat, play, don't sleep, play, solve cases, play, humor John. How on earth will he replace John? He won't. He can't. He shouldn't have let John become more than a nuisance in the first place, shouldn't have involved such a weak variable – human contact – in his methods. But removing one instrumental piece of his precise schedule is better than removing two, and the rest is so easy to replicate. John had become his challenge, in all of his unpredictability. John still is his challenge, but now simply because he cannot have him in his life. Now, he's alone. Alone, alone, alone. The word never seemed to bother him before. But never had he discovered such a stimulating second mind. Not quite extraordinary like his own, but certainly not ordinary. Stimulating.

It's precisely his requirement for stimulus that has lead Sherlock back to 221B, despite the enormous risk the entire operation holds. He's always liked risks, but this isn't one to enjoy. He dreads this one challenge, because he doesn't know if he'll mess it up or not. And if he's found out, if it all falls to shit... Sherlock can hear the sniper fire in the back of his mind, and it makes him jump. No – his brain will not fool him. Not now.

It's dark but not far from dawn as he pulls out his key and enters the apartment for the first time in what feels like a millennium. Really, it's only been two weeks of homelessness and nicotine patches used sparingly, but Sherlock is starved for music and knowledge and John and it's devouring his mind. He can no longer think properly – deduction has left him. He feels weak and out of practice, and he can't even imagine his mind palace it troubles him so. The disrepair it's in stings like a ragged, deep laceration right over his heart.

He sneaks up the first staircase rather soundlessly – that, he can say, he's still brilliant at – and stands in the sitting room for a moment. John is the type to like things clean. His own bedroom had always been kept spotless, if not a bit impersonal and hard to draw deductions from, and upon seeing the flat for the first time he had said it'd be perfect if it was tidied up. However, nothing in the room has changed since Sherlock's jump. Just as messy as ever. All of Sherlock's belongings were willed to his flatmate, so the good doctor had every right to do what suited him. Was it nothing, then? Since when had simply doing nothing suited John in the least? Not since before the war, he can rightfully say.

Where is the violin, then? If nothing else was moved, Sherlock decides it has to be in his room. He resists brewing a cup of tea – it would be the first he's had since the cup John made him two weeks prior – or checking on the eyeballs in the microwave as he passes the kitchen and focuses on the door to what was his most private area. He had hardly ever exploited the haven that his bedroom had offered. Before John, there had been no one to avoid. With John, there was no reason to avoid. The army surgeon's mind had been like a sturdy brick wall, whether or not he spoke his thoughts, and Sherlock had been quite content to sit on his arse and bounce ideas off of his mere presence all day and night. Now, he knows not what his room has become. The entire flat is a shrine to the great Sherlock Holmes. How, then must his room be kept?

He opens the door and shuts it behind him, just as it was before. In the darkness, he sees nothing. Where his bed is, he hears light snoring. John's snoring. Sherlock's colorless eyes adjust to the absolute darkness, and there he is. He wears Sherlock's clothes as he sleeps in Sherlock's bed. Beside the only consulting detective in the world is the violin case, and he grabs it eagerly. The sudden urge to play tugs at his heartstrings, but he knows he cannot. He must process this scene without its help. Deduction, his mind weak, emotional, disused, has never been so painful.

As John sleeps, Sherlock inches closer to observe. He is doused in a thin sheen of sweat and he pants and shakes. Eyes dance feverishly under closed lids and lips part in soundless whimpers. A nightmare hidden in snores. Harry's old phone sits on the beside table. There are more scratches where it's plugged in to charge. A shaking hand. Not from alcohol, because John has a personal vendetta against binge drinking. An intermittent tremor that's returned. That blasted cane rests beside Sherlock's bed. A psychosomatic limp. John knows about its cause, but he can't remedy it anymore. He's seeing his doctor again, but it doesn't help. Nothing helps.

Sherlock knows it's his absence. He knows his death is the cause. There's no adrenaline to guide John through life, to pave his path and numb his pain. The battlefield has been pulled out from under his feed for a second time since his addiction to it began, and it's cruel. Even crueler than his addiction to it.

John lets out a yawp and Sherlock, closer than he had planned on letting himself get, nearly jumps out of his skin. He scuffles back to a corner he knows to be eternally doused in shadows and has settled into the shelter just as John's eyes fly open in terror. His pants are shallow and dry, and he sits up in a cocoon of blankets. Knowledge sits heavy in his drooping eyes.

"Sherlock?" he croaks, clearly parched. The brunet in the corner feels himself wither inside. He needs to flee. Too many emotions. To much sentiment. No wonder the world thinks he's dead; he lost the game. He grew... fond of someone. He grew weak.

John swings his legs to the side of the bed as he curses himself. With one hand, he reaches for his cane. The other is already occupied by his pistol, and the safety is off. Had he been holding it in his sleep...? Sherlock had failed to notice. For a moment, the good doctor raises the handgun to his head, and Sherlock can see Moriarty die. Hopelessness floods him again and he reaches out. He wants to scream, but John doesn't pull the trigger. Instead, he gently places the firearm down on the beside table and, with the aid of his cane, limps out of the room. His disability is much more pronounced than Sherlock remembers it to have been.

Had that all been for the rush? For a momentary feeling of uncertainty? Perhaps he had made John suicidal. Sherlock had always thought that he ran that risk more when he was alive, rather than dead. He presses his back to the wall and sinks down it slowly, fingertips pressed first to each other then to his lips. He is uncertain. So very uncertain.

The faucet is turned on in the kitchen and John comes back with a glass of water. Sherlock will have to wait to leave until he is sleeping – and then until he can compose himself. The sun isn't far off. If it rises, it will be too late for secrets. John needs to sleep now.

Sherlock watches as John drinks the water he's retrieved from his Royal Army Medical Corps mug. He's perched on the side of the bed, hand still shaking against his case. The tremor is like an earthquake to the spying detective. John's gray eyes probe the room after his water is finished, but he misses Sherlock, chilled to the bone by his own irrational shivering. He almost sees recognition in his eyes as John's gaze passes his corner, but he's vacant again and laying down with some difficulty before Sherlock can give up and advance from the shadows. Why, at that moment, did his breath hitch? It must have been momentary excitement. Or fear. Had he been holding his breath? Sherlock feels starved for oxygen and slides his fingers over his mouth to silence his ragged gasps for air.

"Could've sworn..." John murmurs to himself, his proper accent frail and undone by his weariness. When had he picked up the habit of external monologue? Sherlock reckons that he ought to use a skull. At least then his desperate words could be prose instead of candid heartbreak, ad-libbed just for Sherlock's unreasonable, unwarranted pain.

But he drifts off – into REM, too, judging by the erection that tents his blankets as he shifts onto his back – and Sherlock his freed from his bar-less prison. As he leaves, the morning wood John sports makes him lightheaded and giddy. He can't place why, when a moment ago he was sodden with grief and regret. Perhaps, he theorizes, it's the knowledge that his friend's body is sound, even if his mind does not seem to be. Nocturnal tumescence during REM is sign of health. Sometimes, Sherlock knows offhandedly, the process is halted by extreme depression. Then, maybe, he isn't as put out as he seems, despite the gun that he had put to his head not an hour ago.

Yes, perfect explanation.

Sherlock doesn't send a second look to the rest of the flat as he leaves. There's nothing to see – it's all the same as he left it. John's seen to that. But, as he closes the door marked 221B Baker Street, the violin case in hand, he knows that his thoughts will continue to linger here with John, as they have since his fall.

The good doctor is hopeless without Sherlock, he's concluded. Utterly hopeless. He needs the next adventure; he needs excitement and adrenaline. That shared need – John's for specific danger, Sherlock's for anything truly witty – had been the glue between them. The link that created their symbiotic relationship. They still need each other, and they both know it, but it's not possible for Sherlock to help John anymore. Not directly. And John... He will not be back in Sherlock's routine for some time. He doesn't know how – he needs his violin for this riddle – but Sherlock will nestle it back into their lives. The adrenaline, the excitement. He owes it to John, and he's too greedy and dangerous to do without it himself. It'll happen, and soon. Somehow.

He just... he needs to think. Ah, what a wonderful problem.

* * *

><p>Thanks for reading! Hope it wasn't too short. Reviews are always much appreciated. They usually help the updating process, too ;) Until next time, then.<p>

- Phyre


	2. The Probus Mendens March

**Title:** Synapses

**Author: **BluePhyre

**Rating: **T for the moment :P

**Genre: **Angst, Adventure

**Summary: **The suicide of Sherlock leaves his associate and only friend, Dr. Watson, crippled and depressed. To save him, Holmes assumes the role he's carefully avoided for years. Criminal. Puppeteer. He is Moriarty. He will be, for John. Jocklock, Post-Reichenbach.

**Disclaimer: I do not own any manifestation of Sherlock Holmes, and either do I own the lyrics below. That's Motion City Soundtrack.**

**Author's Note:** Hey :D Thank for for the reviews and subscriptions and whatnot! Really, there aren't too many, but I'm grateful all the same. Can't expect too much just from the prologue, and I haven't got a big following or anything. Just good friends. I've decided to try to add a chapter every Monday - let's see how that works. On the other hand, I'm heading off to Washington DC this weekend, so I'm not sure I can stick to this new schedule. Whoops. Already breaking goals... Oh well

This chapter is more of the length that I want to stick to, around 5,000 words. Not too long, but still something to scroll through. Hmm. I'm going to be having difficulty in the future because of how much Dr. Who I've been watching, so I'll probably need to do a Sherlock refresher on the series or something... Don't want to channel the Doctor. That'd be bad. Hmm. Well, thank you for your invested interest and I really hope you enjoy this chapter. It's the first of many! Don't forget to review, either :P

* * *

><p><em>"Hysteria, hysteria, It's happening again<br>__I fall apart, I fall apart, I'm back where I began  
><em>If it were anybody else but you, I would not be afraid.<br>_A total calamity, the choices I have made."___

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter One: The Probus Mendens March<strong>

Tenseness ripples through Sherlock as the click of the deadbolt reaches his ears. Molly unlocks the door and steps into her flat, but he doesn't stop playing his sad, lilting melody. The violin weeps with notes chosen at random from the British Grenadiers March – an honor to John that he is conscious of while no one else could dare notice. As she hears and sees him, Molly shrieks and drops her groceries. She gawks at him – he can tell, even though his back is turned to her, because there's a certain something in her silence – and he bows a particularly poignant note before letting the throaty wails of his composition drop to a polite mezzopiano for their impending conversation. He doesn't often show such consideration, but he realizes at this particular moment he must be kind to her... If only just a little.

"You act as if you've seen a ghost, Molly," he muses, and it's at that precise comment where his humor will end. He's in no mood to make jokes, witty or not. They have always been reserved for John. Molly tries to laugh out of courtesy, but it hits the air as a far cry from anything less than just-relieved terror.

"What are you doing here?" she asks, attempting to gather the brown paper bags that had crashed down around her feet. A few toes will ache tomorrow, she knows, as the tub of laundry detergent had smashed down on her right foot. "No, never mind. How did you get in!? I have a security system, you know. Expensive one, too."

Sherlock doesn't afford her a scoff this time around as she scurries to check the keypad on the wall. "You'll find no disturbance," he informs her, though she still checks. He's right, of course. "I'm the world's only consulting detective. If I couldn't break into your flat, I would be selling the position quite short."

It's with a grimace that he adds, "And since I'm dead, I imagine I can walk through walls. That's what you people believe dead things can do, isn't it?"

Molly groans in frustration and goes into the kitchen to store her groceries. She doesn't seem to want to deal with him at the moment. Bad dad? He doesn't care enough to deduce it. Sherlock has more important things to riddle out. More important problems to solve. Molly's cross behavior has absolutely no weight in his busy mind. Not now. She'll lend a hand whether she's tetchy or not. She's useful in that way. A good soul with a vulnerable heart – one that Sherlock has no qualms taking advantage of.

"I need your help," he admits, and Molly emerges from the kitchen quickly. That makes two times that he's said that to her, and he knows she's keeping track. He knows she's counting. How utterly humiliating. He'd only said "please" to John a handful of times, and here she was, a colleague at best, catching up to... whatever Watson was to him. "Don't gawk, it's rather unbecoming on you." There. That'll set her straight. "This is the last time I'll say it. Or ask it of you. Or... Just help."

She's irritating him and she knows it well. Her shock always irks him – as if it makes her stupid. She's very competent, she'd like to think. More so than he gives her credit for, at least, and she's doing everything imaginable for this petulant man. Even now, on the counter sits a pack of nicotine patches. Molly knows Sherlock hasn't been able to get his hands on them, having to avoid anywhere with cameras and live off of what little he kept on his person. She didn't expect him to come around for help. She had actually been prepared to hunt him down, if only to make sure he didn't have to brave withdrawal along with everything else. He should appreciate her. He won't. He's only ever appreciated John.

It's funny, how she was once jealous of Irene Adler, that woman Sherlock recognized by her body rather than her face. He's always been about John, even if he hasn't seen it himself. She doesn't know in what way – whether he fancies him or only devotes his life to him because he thinks John is his only friend. She had always thought that Sherlock was asexual, that one day he would actually eat a decent meal and split in two, but John changed that. It's there in his eyes now, in the way he holds himself, in the tune he plays. She can see right through him and he's thinking about John. His inquiry – his plea for help – is about John. And oh, that's the worst kind.

"Well?" she asks. It breaks her heart to do this because she adores Sherlock and she's grown fond of John, and right now they both hurt tremendously because of this bluff she's helped the detective execute. Can't he just throw in the towel and defend his good doctor some other way? It'd hurt them all – Sherlock, John, even Molly – much less. He doesn't see it that way, probably. Sherlock always has to be difficult. He always has to be clever. It's better not to get involved with a man like that, Molly has always told herself. She's glad he's a tosser. Yeah – that's it. She has sidestepped heartbreak and now they can continue to be good friends. Or friends. Or colleagues. No girl is bitter over the gay man's disinterest. "It's not his fault," they say. "I'm the best girl he'd ever get if only he weren't gay." It makes for an easy rejection. As easy as they come.

"I need to let John know that I am alive," Sherlock says simply. His fingers dance on the violin's strings and he's become louder again. He needs to think, and being musically reserved will do no good for this thought process. Molly recognizes the tune immediately, as he's forgotten to encrypt it. A military march. Of course. John, always the soldier, be it urban or abroad. How has Sherlock let slip this secret?

Molly tries to get a word in – her plan is to stress how unbearably cruel it was to ever deceive poor John in the first place – but Sherlock's bow leaves the strings for a moment, and he glares at her in the pause. She's quieted immediately by those gray-blue eyes – before she can speak at all. Right. He wasn't done. The upbeat march returns before his voice does, and she sighs. Prick.

"He needs to figure it out for himself," Sherlock adds. Molly is going to ask why, but he beats her to it. 'It's not safe to tell him – not when there are still three assassins out there with orders to gun John, Mrs. Hudson, and Lestrade down if I live. He simply must put the clues together and deduce it for himself."

Oh. So this is actually for Dr. Watson's benefit. And it's not a terrible idea? Not yet, anyway. Molly can't say she isn't surprised by Sherlock's balance of brilliance and concern. It's almost as if he's human, but she doesn't dare fool herself with the possibility. "You want me to plant these clues, then?" she asks. Cold gray-blue eyes meet her own and she realizes that the tune has stopped again. What has she done this time?

"I don't know," he admits. "I know only what must be done. He must be led to the conclusion, perhaps even tricked into a false sense of danger. I will have to play the role Moriarty once filled, I'm afraid." The thought seems to bother him, but Molly knows it must be a trick of the light. He had no qualms with Moriarty until the very end. It had been a game that they played – like chess. It was chess for geniuses.

"So I may discern the rest, you will provide me with nicotine patches and a place to play my violin." Mmph. Right. He expected her to pay attention. "If you feel it necessary to charge me, my bank account is still active. I took the liberty of checking on your laptop. When it is discontinued, I will give you John's account number. What money I had goes to him, after all."

Molly feels violated on her computer's behalf – mostly because her password was Sherlock's birthday – and frowns. He surely knows John's password, too. If he can remember his bank account information... She makes a plan to begin hiding her things. Perhaps she should bring them to the lab instead. There are cameras in there; Sherlock can't get his curious hands on anything personal there, can he?

"And you expect me to do whatever else you demand," Molly adds begrudgingly, though it had always been an unspoken rule between them. Do as Sherlock tells you to. Always. "I suppose I'll help. Who else do you have to turn to?" It's sarcastic, but she doesn't intend to send him away and he doesn't often register her sarcasm.

Sherlock decides that the conversation has ended and walks over to her window to watch the world as he resumes playing his violin. Below, the street is harried and busy. It rains, and Londoners rush past each other wordlessly with umbrellas bobbing above their heads and their collars turned to protect their necks. It's no longer safe for him to walk about in that world, so he'll have to get his stimulus from in here for how. Knowledge. He'll have to apply it cleverly to help John along his way, so it won't be too difficult to stave off boredom. The real challenge will be discerning what John will and will not understand. He's never understood him before. This is his final chance to try. The British Grenadiers have had their anthem twisted into mournful spirals of thought for too long now, so Sherlock lets his right arm, bow clasped tight, fall to his side for a moment. He stretches his fingers and wipes at the neck of the beautiful instrument; it's been too long since he's played, and now his fingers bleed from the strain.

"Done already?" Molly asks, not very interested in the answer. Her voice is muffled by plaster, and he assumes she's continued to store her groceries.

"No," he says. "Not for quite some time." Sherlock strikes up another tune, but it's sadder than his previous one had been. More beautiful, too. Molly sighs and wishes to drown herself in her sink. This melody no longer hails John; it wails and moans and laments him. It shatters her heart into a thousand pieces and sews it back together, scarred in grotesque elegance, and when she thinks she can hurt no more, it rips her apart again. Is this how Sherlock feels? It's beautiful. Tragic and beautiful.

"What's it called?" she dares to ask after some time. The song dips low and his fingers pull a tremolo from the strings, divine and demented and gorgeous all in one. She suspects that he hasn't heard her, so she sighs and stares at a heap of microwavable dinners she should be putting in the freezer.

"Vale Decem," he calls to her, and the violin follows in a weepings, dangerously high pitch. He's growing more violent, and as he plays the piece becomes even more beautiful.

Molly laughs despite herself. How Sherlock this all is.

* * *

><p>It's 2:13 in the morning and John is awake. He sits in his favorite armchair, his cane hooked over the plush back for when he will need it. His left hand shakes more sporadically than ever and his eyes dance across the eternally moving pictures of the telly. Crap-TV. It has lost its humor without Sherlock to sit across from him and sneer at the poorly constructed plot or the mindless dialogue or the shoddy pseudo-science behind it all. His eyes sting from the flickering lights of the television in the otherwise dark room.<p>

John can't remember the last time he's slept, or even the last time he's been out of the flat. It was probably Sherlock's funeral. How long ago was that? He takes a moment to count on his fingers, marking the changing of days by a meal or a specific show, not by their date, and he realizes that he's been a hermit for eleven days now. John can't remember when the food ran out, either, but it was a while ago. Mrs. Hudson had made him dinner after that... once... Is this what it's like to be Sherlock? No. It wasn't ever quite so depressing. It was brilliant. He was brilliant, and John is depressing.

He needs to get up. He needs purpose. He needs a cup of tea – or perhaps just a beer, one singular beer to give him a buzz instead – or he needs to get to sleep. But he can't. Sleep deprivation tugs down his eyelids and dryness scratches at his throat and hunger devours his stomach, but John cannot bear to do anything except sit. Sit and wait for something miraculous to happen. If he lets himself sleep, he'll dream of Sherlock's leap. Sherlock's death. He can't handle that. So, despite his aching leg, John grabs his cane off the back of the chair and forces himself up. He hobbles to set a kettle on the stove and purposely chooses caffeinated tea. When the water boils, he drinks where he stands by the counter. He doesn't want to risk spilling it on himself as he limps back to his seat, and as long as he stands still, he should be fine.

On a whim, once his tea is finished, he's hobbling over to the stereo instead of his chair. It's been too quiet without Sherlock shouting his epiphanies or shooting the wall, but only now has John thought about putting the deadman's extensive music collection to use. It's John's now, isn't it? The first CD he can grab is the one that the pops into the player, simply because he doesn't want to bother with his leg too much. It's too tedious. The disk takes a moment to begin spinning in the deice, and by the time sound emerges from the speakers, John is sitting in his seat once more. Whatever's about to come on, whatever volume it's at, he'll deal with it. Anything to break the unbearable silence.

A throat clears, and it's not John's. It's... a deeper sound. A familiar sound. And then John jumps. "Probus Mendens concerto, first movement." Sherlock declares from within the speakers. "Composer, Sherlock Holmes."

It's only when the violin to sing jovially that the good doctor realizes two things: First, it's not Sherlock, but only a recording of the man. Second, he's begun to breath faster. The strings chant a militaristic march, and John wonders if it can be called a concerto at all. It's certainly something he's never heard, though it's familiar. It's the kind of song that had followed him throughout Afghanistan and back to London when he was a soldier. The Northumberland Fusilier Band had cheered everyone in his regiment up, and John was no exception. Sherlock couldn't have known this, though. He didn't speak of his army life. It was only a coincidence. In fact, this could have been recorded before he met Sherlock.

John can't understand, though. It's a chipper, fast-paced march. He had never heard Sherlock play anything happy – the only upbeat tunes he had struck out of the violin were mysterious, chaotic, frantic. This was entirely out of place for the detective, and not only was he playing the song: He had composed it. He had composed it and recorded it. Sherlock had never been patriotic, and he had never expressed his own joy in music. No, in those rare, truly-happy moments, Sherlock was deducing up a storm or simply smiling wildly at John. Such perfect moments between them... The violin was a coping mechanism and a thought-provoker, and this... this did not fit its role in Sherlock's life.

Still, John is comforted slightly by his dead friend's musical prowess. He sits back in his oversized chair and closes his eyes. The song is everywhere around him, bouncing off the walls and waltzing through the air, and he half expects Mrs. Hudson to holler tat him to turn it down. She doesn't, though, because she's sleeping and music really isn't as loud as he imagines it to be. John hasn't heard so much silence in his life than he has in the past two weeks. It had been torture, and Sherlock's concerto was like water to a man dying of thirst. John was dying of silence.

He does not want to leave the flat. He does not want to change anything here, either, and he knows why. The moment he does, there will be no hope for Sherlock's return If he changes things, he'll have to accept the death of his friend and he can't do that just yet. Still, he has to practice... Out there, out in the real world, all of England wants to know the truth. Worse yet, all of England thinks that they know they truth. They're wrong, of course. They're all wrong and, in Sherlock's name, he must set them right.

Sherlock's Macbook sits on the end table next to him atop a pile of papers. He reaches for it and pulls it into his lap, but he's not sure if he wishes to open it just yet. He stifles uneven breath, aggravated by grief and an unexplained frustration with himself, as he stares at it, watches it, wonders if he can trust it. The internet, like the world, had been lost to him after Sherlock's funeral. Still, he pulls up the clamshell lid and types in the password Sherlock had told him: 18593632 863451. He really has no idea what it means, but he had memorized it nonetheless because knowing the detective's password was like finding the fountain of youth. It's with a keen sense of disappointment that the laptop informs him that he's guessed wrong. No one will ever be able to log onto Sherlock's MacBook ever again.

With a groan, he places his friend's computer aside and stands to get his own. It's sitting across the room, and John has never felt more like Sherlock as he does now, finding the trek too arduous despite how short it is. When he reaches the other side of the room, he collapses on the sofa and pulls his own Samsung laptop to him. It's not as nice as Sherlock's, but then again he never needed it to be. This time as he types in the password, he's rewarded with the desktop background: a nice picture of Harry. It's his birthday, the password, because Sherlock had always liked everything to be witty. A birthday simply isn't witty. As far as he knew, he hadn't discovered this last one before... well...

John's blog opens as the system reloads, and it hits him like a train. Like a fist to the gut. No – like Sherlock's fist to his face. He can't stop the soft bay from hitting the air, and it takes its precious time to dissipate amongst the cheery march. He knows it's better to start here – to answer everyone in text where he can control himself. On his keyboard, he can retype a reply until it's just right. He can type all night if he wishes. Self-censorship is a keen option here online, unlike in reality. Face to face, he'd probably bark an insult, slur a curse, throw a punch... His temper has grown short now. He has to get used to the heckling, build up his tolerance for the shit, and he'll do it here. A controlled environment. An experiment in laboratory conditions.

Just like he's anticipated, there are hundreds of questions littering his ask box, each and every entry he's published, even his email. They all ask the same uninventive questions. Was Sherlock a hoax? How did he fake it all? Is Sherlock really dead? Why did he kill himself? As his blogger and lover, where did all of this leave John?

Oh, for heaven's sake...

John is about to slam the laptop shut, but he tells himself that these questions can't be kept at bay by simply closing a window or even avoiding the internet entirely. They'll always be there, and he'll have to get used to answering them. All of them. Keystrokes begin, breaking harshly over the march, though they're slow at first. Calculating. Hesitant. He decides to write one, all-settling essay. It's less painstaking that way.

**John Watson, 2:33 AM January 29, 2012**

My flatmate and best friend, Sherlock Holmes, has died. Two weeks ago, on January 15th, he jumped from the roof of St. Bartholomew's Hospital and succeeded in taking his own life. I can't tell you why he did it, but I know this: It was not because he was a fraud. He was never a fraud, and anyone who's ever known him will tell you that. They'll tell you he was an ass, of course, and their reasoning will be his genius, his ability to deduce, and his ability to keep any of it to himself. He was brutally honest – the only times he ever lied were to solve a case. Sherlock Holmes was not a fraud, and should be considered anything less than a flawed man or flawless intelligence.

Richard Brook fabricated his great lie to fool the public, to bring Sherlock to his death. Richard Brook, the actor, is fictional – James Moriarty, the criminal mastermind, is not. He was as real as you or me, as real as Sherlock. Moriarty, too, has committed suicide. Have you read that in the papers? They must say it's because of his tarnished reputation. Instead, I believe his death is connected to Sherlock's. In fact, he is responsible for it, though I don't know how. I am no consulting detective. I cannot discern how and I will not try to. It's a mystery best left untouched – how to make such a proud man take his own life is not a knowledge the world needs. I know that the world will be a better place without Moriarty, the only consulting criminal, just as it will be a much worse place without Sherlock, the only consulting detective.

Sherlock Holmes was a great mean, and sometimes even a good one. He solved crimes mostly for the fun of it all, for the mental stimulus it provided, but nonetheless he helped people and expected nothing in return. He changed lives, mine included. Sherlock's mind was a gift to behold, and even though my time as his colleague was short-lived, I consider myself privileged to have been able to watch him work and, sometimes, even to help him. Even though he had always tried to convince me otherwise, Sherlock had a heart. He had emotions; love, confusion, hopelessness, anger, kinship, concern. He felt them all. He was human, as so many people forget, but he was also so much more than that. To me, he was a colleague, a friend, a brother. To speak ill of him as so many do now is cruel and unwarranted. Respect the dead, we all say, so do as you are told. Do as you tell others, you hypocrites. Listen to yourselves, why don't you! Don't disrespect a man because of the faults which made him human, made him alive. Don't disrespect him because society says you should or simply because he was different. Don't disrespect him because you didn't understand him. No one really understood him – not even me.

Don't believe everything you read – don't believe those accusations published in one foolish tabloid. Or, if you can't manage that, stop spreading rumors. Stop fabricating stories of your own. And if you can't even do that, then don't post on my blog. Don't email me. Don't talk to me. Don't seek out my attention, because you don't deserve it. Sod off! Sherlock did nothing to deserve your abuse, and as a friend who mourns his death, neither did I.

And no, for God's sake, I'm not gay.

John finishes and stares at the entry. All questions answered. This is where he stands; he believes in Sherlock and he'll stand up for him, even when the detective himself had wanted to take the blame. He'd fight for Sherlock's honor, given the choice. Despite growing enmity, John uploads the segment and switches to his email, promptly deleting the mail about Sherlock. He disregards the rest. It's all spam anyway, though perhaps Harry's written him somewhere in all the mess. He'll message her later. Sherlock's concerto has yet to end, even though it's been playing for quite some time now, and he wants to cherish the notes. Just as John is about the close the laptop to give Sherlock the entirety of his attention – though, he enjoys how warm it is against his cold body – his email lets out a cute, mild "bing." It's a reply to his entry. Even though he knows it will bring a new rush of grief, John refreshes the page and scrolls down to read the first comment.

**sherlove, 2:36 AM, January 29 2012**

**i believe u. rite more about sherlock's death. wats the truth?**

Sucking in a deep, pained breath, John tabs down to leave a quick reply. His teeth and gums sting from the cold rush of air, and he wonders when the last time he brushed his teeth was. It's his rule that if he can't remember, it's been far too long. He resolves to do that before he goes to bed. If he goes to bed. No wonder it's been a while...

**John Watson, 2:38 AM, January 29 2012**

**I don't know. I only am sure that he's not a fake and that there's more to this than there seems.**

This time, he sits and watches the computer screen for a reply. "Sherlove" might not write back – after all, there's no reason to, he's given them nothing – but he feels like he owes this person another moment of consideration. At last, someone believes him. At last, they'll admit it. Despite himself, he refreshes every few moments until the reply appears under his, and the "bing" of his email follows soon after. It's delayed, and he'd rather just refresh.

**sherlove, 2:40 AM, January 29 2012**

**u shud find out. b like him nd deduce it.**

John blinks and shifts back on the couch. Him. Deduce. "sherlove" has no idea what they're saying. "sherlove" needs to leave him alone. He can't think for a moment that this... this madness... is a good idea. To let it into his thoughts would be dangerous – and not the kind of danger that would return mobility to his leg and steadiness to his hand. No – the dangerous that would bring him further into crippling depression. Never once has he insinuated on his blog that he holds even a candle to what Sherlock's supernova of intelligence was. He's never given anyone any reason to believe that he can use the power of deduction for anything at all. This is unreasonable to expect it of him, cruel to suggest it. It hurts, and John likes "sherlove" much less for it.

J**ohn Watson, 2:41 AM, January 29 2012**

**I can't. Not smart enough. Only Sherlock could "deduce," no matter what his website tells you.**

The reply comes instantly, as if "sherlove" has been waiting for him.

**sherlove, 2:40 AM, January 29 2012**

**do it. we believe in u nd want 2 no. continue ur blog nd solve the final case.**

He reads the message once, then once more. Over and over again he traces the butchered English his his eyes, turning it over in his mind. Do it. Do it? How can he simply "do it?" It's impossible. It has to be. John can't fathom taking on a case without Sherlock – not even the ones he had brushed aside for Moriarty's game. The riddle of his suicide was too big, too complex. It involved Sherlock. It had to be.

John needs nothing more than to get out of this place. He needs to go back to the clinic with Sarah and earn a living. He needs to keep this place, because if he can't, it'll kill him. He knows Mrs. Hudson would never kick him out, but if he can't pay, he refuses to burden her. He could sell Sherlock's things, but that would be sacrilegious. No, he'll simply scrape by. John will find a way to continue, simply because he has to. For himself and for Sherlock.

What a stupid idea. "sherlove" is just expecting too much of him – just a mindless fan, too beguiled by a man she never met. This unseen face – probably a young, lonely woman – has no reason to be upset about the consulting detective's death. John has a reason to be desperate, but not "sherlove." So he'll ignore her, just as he's ignored nearly everyone else.

John sighs and closes the laptop slowly. It's a terrible idea. No good will come of it, so he needs to forget it. A bad idea... Such a bad idea.

As the computer begins to sleep, he sets it aside and reaches for his cane. John groans and pushes himself up, and his leg screams in protest as it's put to use once more. His shaking hand collides wit the wall as he tries to brace himself, and as he limps to Sherlock's room, the pain brings tears to his eyes. Even if he wanted to go to his room, the stairs would make the journey much too daunting. He doesn't try to change into his pajamas, either – the fact that he was out of them at all today is a feat. He's too tired, so he drops his cane at the foot of the bed and falls into it. He shifts up the bed and stares at the ceiling.

He's there for a moment, breathing laboriously and thinking of nothing, before he pulls his jumper over his head and undoes his belt. After minutes of struggling, John's left in his boxers, much more tired but also fairly more comfortable. His clothes litter the floor, and he buries his face in the pillows. There's little to no trace of Sherlock in here anymore – John's slept it out of the room.

He's relieved when he doesn't cry. John can't tell anymore when the tears will come and when they will leave him be. It usually begins with the ache in his leg, so it's only luck that keeps him from weeping tonight. The good doctor drifts in and out of sleep throughout the night. When he wakes, he's still haunted by Sherlock's dead, nearly colorless eyes of ice.

It's there, burned into his vision. The face of his best friend that he had watched jump from atop Bart's – the man that was nothing like Sherlock. Voice, identical. Appearance, yes, identical. Tears and blood and weakness and death, unrecognizable. As he prepares for the day, he can only see Sherlock's dead eyes peering back at him. Watching him. His limp hinders him a bit less, he realizes as he prepares his oatmeal. A cup of coffee pours awareness into him, and with the wisdom it lends him John muses that it's because his nightmares have frightened him so intensely. Nightmares...

Today, he thinks he will visit Molly at St. Bart's. He needs to take steps to return to his life before Sherlock. The first step is to venture out of his flat. There aren't many places he wants to go. He doesn't want to be alone – he's been alone long enough – but what friends are left? Sherlock had driven most everyone out of his life. There's still Lestrade, but the police station doesn't appeal to him... Possibly because of his run-in with the detective inspector's superior. John had very few friends before going off to war, and he's the only one he knows to have returned home from his regiment. He hasn't had a chance to contact anyone in months. Molly's the only option left, because he doesn't want to to go Mycroft. The man is a traitor, and they were never amiable anyway. No, he'll go visit her. He'll brave the memory of what happened... there.

* * *

><p>Well, there you have it! The first proper chapter of Synapses. Was it any good? You should definitely review. Yeah, that's it. Until next time, then!<p>

- Phyre


	3. Sheherazade

**Title: **Synapses

**Author:**BluePhyre

**Rating:**T... For now.

**Genre: **Angst, Adventure

**Summary: **The suicide of Sherlock leaves his associate and only friend, Dr. Watson, crippled and depressed. To save him, Holmes assumes the role he's carefully avoided for years. Criminal. Puppeteer. He is Moriarty. He will be, for John. Jocklock, Post-Reichenbach.

**Disclaimer: I don't own Sherlock or any version of Sherlock Holmes, and the lyrics belong to Motion City Soundtrack, not myself.**

**Author's Note:** I'm so happy to be able to get this out on time! I was supposed to be heading up to Boston today, but that didn't happen. Oh well. At least I can keep to my schedule. I actually haven't edited this ten times over, so forgive me if there are any mistakes. I wish I had been able to polish it, but oh well. I'm also looking for a beta. If anyone wants to take that up, I'd be stoked :D Of course, I want to keep up my Mondays, so be ready to edit often...? Je ne sais pas.

Uhm, okay. Also, thank you so much, everyone who has reviewed/put the story on alerts or in your favorites. I really appreciate it! I'd also love it if anyone else would review, too :3 Thanks! I hope you like the chapter.

* * *

><p>"<em>My body aches, it heaves, it shakes<br>__All somersaults through so-called art  
><em>_And I still don't know exactly who I am  
><em>_I never will, amen."_

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Two: Sheherazade<strong>

Freshly shaven, showered, and fed, John emerges onto the sidewalk from 221B Baker Street. It's the first time in his immediate memory that he's been in all three states at the same time, and he notes to himself that he desperately needs to make it a daily occurrence. Mrs. Hudson spots him from her shop, and he notices from the corner of his eye as he walks towards the street. Their eyes meet for a moment, and still she only smiles sadly and lets him go on his way. Today, she doesn't want anything to keep him from the world. She won't risk a conversation yet. It's oddly reminiscent of a mother bird nudging her young out of the nest, but she isn't entirely sure if John has wings at all anymore. She reckons he might fall, just like Sherlock has.

"Taxi!" John hails, arm raised to call attention to his still form. His voice cracks as he shouts, and his throat aches from disuse. When had he last spoken...? It takes a few attempts, but when a black cab pulls up to the curb in front of him, John takes his time to climb in. Cabs–he hates cabs. Cabs driven by murderers. Cabs from Baker Street to Bart's. Cabs that drive too fast, but too slow. To slow to stop anything.

When the cabby turns in his seat to ask him where, John tells him, "St. Bartholomew's Hospital," and they're off. A stretch of silence fills the car, and John is left to do nothing more than stare out the window and watch the world go by. This car ride is lonely without Sherlock's genius mumblings. The vehicle stops right where it had stopped on that day. The day those genius mumblings ceased to exist.

"Twenty-five pounds," the cabby announces. That can't be right and John wishes to call him on it, but the words refuse to leave his throat and when he reaches into his pocket, there's no wallet and no money. Out of work, no income, no money, broke. The truth drifts back to him, previously blocked by a world that had room for concern over money. A world that consists of only grief and deprived human needs. It's too late, this broken dam in his mind, because he's still stuck for money. What can he do? Give his contact information to the man and hope he's kind enough to wait for the pay? Will he be arrested? Who's around to bail him out now that Sherlock's gone?

No, scratch that. Not once in their friendship had Sherlock ever bailed John out of jail. More often than not, he was the reason he was behind bars in the first place. Sometimes, the detective would even be in holding with him. He usually let the blame fall to John alone, so this would be no different, this impending night in jail.

"I... I don't have..." John begins to stutter, but a hand raps on the driver's window gently, and the good doctor watches as he rolls it down and accepts two crisp bills from an ownerless hand. Stunned, John wriggles over to the door and pushes himself out as quickly as he can, though it's not as smooth as he'd like with his leg and all, to get a glimpse of his savior.

Molly watches him like a frightened mouse from the sidewalk, and her face blooms into a pitying grin. John can't help but count in his head all the times he's gotten that same exact look since Sherlock's jump. It's a decent number, despite his lack of contact with the outside world. He's really that pathetic, then?

"I'm surprised to see you here, John," she says softly as she offers an arm to him. It's meant to steady him, to help him walk. He's too proud to take it, though, and begins to limp towards the hospital without her help. "I mean, because of what happened..."

"Sherlock's death, yes," John interjects. It doesn't feel good to say, but he has to sometime. His voice is stark and chilled at this precise moment, not weak as it had been, before he remembers himself. She has just paid his cab fare and he'd come with every intention of visiting her. There's no need to be rude. But... they're hard, those words. "I, uhm, needed a friend," he explains after a moment of silence, "but he'd always made sure that I'd only had one true one... Him. If not on purpose, then just because of the way he was. Demanding."

Molly nods; she knows what he means. "Yes, he did expect everyone to drop everything to listen to him," she agrees. By now, she's begun to walk a little behind him, surprised by the pace he's keeping. "I had thought we were friends anyway, you know. I didn't think I'd ever see you again, but I've considered us friends for a while now." She had probably concluded that Sherlock's death would be the end of John's association with the life he had crafted after returning to England. It was a good assumption, but entirely the opposite of the truth. "Don't worry about the money, either. I suppose you haven't had work since the incident."

"No," he admits in a growl. "Just very persistent readers. He left his side jobs, but I haven't gotten around to them and I don't think I will." It's a pain to think about – how dependent on Sherlock he had let himself become. They financed their livelihoods on his ability to get out there and serve as a private detective with John at his side. But the good doctor hadn't had a choice, had he? His flatmate had been so demanding, and he could never help but to bend to the strange man's will. He was so smart, so confident, so alone. "Thanks, though. You saved my arse. Had a bad experience with a cabby once. Now I'm rather quick to shoot."

Molly smirks a little to herself as she trails behind John, perhaps because she knows precisely what he speaks of, and takes one brisk step to loop her arm around his. They don't say anything as they walk along the cobblestone crosswalk; John has to focus on each agonizing step and Molly doesn't care whether they talk or stay silent. Sherlock never talked too much – not beyond the mutterings that only made sense in his mind and the deductions he so cruelly spat out – and she has grown used to comfortable silence from him and the morgue. Just like Sherlock, she can't read John's face as she helps him up the curb and onto the sidewalk. His visage is set in stone, not wavering from its clenched concentration as he tries to block out any visible expression of pain. He hadn't limped before – what happened between Sherlock's death and this precise moment? Had he hurt himself to cope with the emotional turmoil?

Suddenly, he stops in his tracks entirely. Molly draws away from his still form to examine a change – any change that might clue her in. Had she been pushing him to walk too fast? Had he suddenly experienced too much pain to continue? His face is suddenly even paler and he looks nauseous, though he stands soundly on both feet. His gray-green-blue eyes fix on the ground, as if he's focusing to steady himself. But he's not – there's no problem with his balance, despite the sudden sickness that's come over him.

"That's his..." John murmurs. His voice is thick with disbelief. His eyes dance over a dark, reddish brown blotch in the poured concrete. It extends in every direction, decently large, clearly reminiscent of pooling blood. This is where Sherlock landed. It's Sherlock's blood. Molly knows it's implausible to expect the city to have bleached the sidewalk when the chemicals involved are so dangerous, but it still shocks her – and she knows he's alive. For John, this must be... Absolutely terrible.

"That's him, Molly. That's all that's left."

She gapes soundlessly as John's knees buckle and his legs give out entirely. Despite the cane he depended on so heavily for just the short walk, he collides with the concrete immediately. Hard. Over his cheekbone, his skin is torn. A similar abrasion marks his forehead, and as he lays there, face down on the ground, his own stain begins to set in the porous pavement beside Sherlock's. As he stares at the blood – his own and his best friend's, side by side, John's quickly-pooling puddle pathetic in comparison despite the blood gushing from the shallow head wound and blinding him – his stomach churns and soon his retching, too, will leave stains next to Sherlock's.

Pedestrians pass the pair, some hurrying by to avoid the spectacle and the stench. Others stop to stare, and even a couple of bystanders snap images with their phones. Molly isn't surprised for John, and she waves them away. He's been thrust into the limelight as Sherlock's live-in blogger – so many people have speculated about his role in the entire scandal. She can't stop the pictures from ending up in a tabloid or two, but still she can't bring herself to pull him up and away from prying eyes. They stare there for some time; John vomits until his breakfast is gone and the mucus he's accumulated from crying has run dry, and Molly simply stands and guards him. The acid in his throat stings and drifts its smell to his sinuses, and he weeps from the pain, the stench, the grief. After too much time has gone by, Molly kneels beside him awkwardly, rubbing his back and trying not to feel guilty for his suffering.

"Let's go in," she says gently. This isn't good or healthy for anyone, so John agrees and allows her to help him up, despite his pride. It's already gone – he, an army doctor, has conquered by a little dried blood. He's vomited and cried in public. His hands and knees, now, are ragged and bloody. His face still bleeds, though his cheek is beginning to scab. Molly needs to get him inside and cleaned up before he can head back home. If he even wants to... Where has he been living? Probably 221B Baker Street. It doesn't seem to Molly as if he's begun to let go of Sherlock, so he must be there.

Without a clue as to whether he should be checked in as a patient or not, she leads him through the ambulance entrance and directly to the laboratory she's in most often. John is handy enough to sit on a stool once they've arrived, and as he does he pouts at a microscope on the table next to him, thought overcoming his features. Does he know what he looks like when he does this? Molly is reminded immediately of a whining puppy. He's vulnerable, and it looks as if he's always been. A sweet, trustworthy face on such a dangerous man. But that's who he is – kind and deadly. His hands clench and unclench, and he thinks about Sherlock. He was last like himself here – John doesn't consider the phone call to have been from Sherlock Holmes. That suicide note of sorts had been so off-color. The Sherlock he had known was stronger than all of that. More stubborn, too. And his death...

"Molly, you were the one to examine him post-mortem," he finds himself declaring suddenly. His fingers twist the fine adjustment knob of the compound microscope beside him as he waits for her answer – he doesn't need to specify who he speaks of. It's clear enough to that Molly's head jerks up. She has been looking at her phone – he hadn't heard it ring, so it must be on silent – and for a moment fear crosses her face. Then, recollection blooms in her eyes and she nods.

"Yes..."

"It... The fall. That was what killed him, right?"

Molly glances down at her mobile again. A text from Sherlock sits on the screen innocently, and she's thankful that John isn't as nosy as his friend was. This is something he is not meant to see.

**I know John is at Bart's with you. Lay hints for him. – SH**

She sucks her lower lip between her teeth and gnaws on it to help her think. There's no way she can imagine to go about obeying Sherlock. What is she supposed to do? Fingers move deftly to lock the screen, and Molly slips the phone in her pocket. As she meets John's eyes, they're pleading for the truth. "Yeah," she mutters. "I examine nearly everyone in here. The skull fracture he sustained seemed post-mortem to me. He was never in any pain; don't worry."

John's following nod is slow and deliberate, and she knows that the cogs in his mind are turning, even if she can't see them or riddle out whatever he might be thinking. Like with Sherlock, she'll have to wait for him to voice his theories. Unfortunately, that's never seemed to be a trait that he shared with the consulting detective.

"I also examined Jim's – Moriarty's – body," she adds, calculating his reaction. "He was dead before Sherlock jumped. I can't fathom why he would kill himself, if he'd thought that he'd won. Or why Sherlock would still..."

"He wasn't a fake!" John barks, and Molly recoils suddenly. She hadn't been insinuating such a thing at all – neither had she expected such a violent reaction. Had John doubted Sherlock, even for a moment? Perhaps that is the reason for his tender feelings. Perhaps he is riddled with guilt, just like her. "I mean, I'm sorry. Everyone says that he was, but he's not. He tried to convince me, too. But I know better. I knew him. He's the most genuine person I've ever known, and he'd never..."

"I believe he did it to spare you." It's Molly who interrupts this time, her voice stronger than she herself feels. "Somehow, you were in danger – Moriarty or no Moriarty. He'd do it for you, you know. If only to save you..." Her phone vibrates in her pocket immediately, and when she stops to unlock it and read the message, her stomach drops.

**Too much. – SH**

He has to be watching them or listening to them, judging by the texts, and she's forgotten to tread carefully. How does he manage any of this? He might have hacked the security system, though none of the cameras are equipped with microphones. He could be reading their lips, or he might have bugged the place. He'd had every opportunity to, but what would be the point? No, he has to be close. Too close for her liking.

When Molly glances up at John from under her eyelashes to assess the damage she's done, she can see the emotions dancing in his eyes. Hurt. Betrayal. Guilt. Happiness? And then, his emotions are wiped clean and he stares at her as if she's sprouted a second head. Really, she had hoped that he would just believe her. But no, John has never been a trusting fellow. If Sherlock had had anything to do with it, he probably worsened his flatmate's paranoia.

"He'd kill himself for me?" he questions skeptically, and Molly suddenly knows where that tiny spark of happiness had come from – the thought that Sherlock would do something overwhelmingly huge for him. The seemingly small possibility that Sherlock might have cared. "No, that's not Sherlock. We were friends – he was my best friend – but he knows better than to off himself. He was making the world a better place, even if it was only a side effect of his silly games. He knew how much I appreciated that, and he wouldn't... He wouldn't waste his brilliant mind..."

Molly can't help it when she speaks out again. It will result in an angry Holmes, but she has to. It's too tempting. She's felt so guilty for so long, and she has to voice the truth. Even disguised as a simply, hypothetical question, it's still the truth. It still makes her a bit better. Besides, it's slipped off her lips before she's gathered the strength to stop it.

"What if he didn't die?"

Her phone vibrates as she speaks, and her eyes flutter shut. She's done it – she's angered the beast. Tonight will be a never-ending Hell. Molly can hear the violin wailing in the back of her mind.

**TOO MUCH. – SH**

Molly's eyes water as she looks to John. He is in so much pain – so much more than she can fathom. Once or twice, when she had first met Sherlock, she had suspected him dead as a result of his detective work. There had been no confirmation, no funeral, no empty feeling in her chest. She had not had a chance to know the man, and once she did she had never expected his untimely demise again. There hadn't been time for her to feel this pain, and she still doesn't because she knows.

Sherlock owes John the information that she bears. Why is it her secret to keep? She has no right to it – she doesn't love Sherlock. She had thought she did, and she'll still entertain the thought, but John was truly close to him. The closest anyone had ever gotten. John was his flatmate, his associate, his confidant, his friend. He was so much more to Sherlock than anyone else, including his own brother, and Sherlock had wormed his way into the good doctor's heart. Sherlock had become his world. Why can't this game be ended and the good doctor informed? Surely, he can keep a secret. He'd be in less pain, and when Sherlock is under the impression that an assassin is surveying your every move, it's probably best to be informed.

"Don't say that," John demands after a moment. His gaze is trained on the floor, and his hands wring each other out. His grip on himself looks painful, and short nails scrape and pull at skin."I've had to convince myself that he's dead – that Sherlock is actually mortal and this isn't just another game for him to play. I've seen shadows cast by cars in the middle of the night and thought it's him. I've heard creaking in the floorboards and thought he'd returned. In my dreams I see him die, over and over again. I watched him fall and I still had to tell myself over and over again that he died! He's Sherlock. He's not supposed to die, but he did. I don't need false hope, Molly, so don't ask such stupid questions."

"I... Okay. Sorry." She finds her lower lip with her teeth and begins to tear at it nervously. She's used to harsh words from Sherlock, and they bother her no less than they would out of his mouth. Guilt floods her stomach until she's positive that it'll come up her throat and choke her, and instead of panicking she stares at the floor. It's her fault – she deserves it. Fingers drum on the counter in the silence, and she shifts from foot to foot. Her eyes train on John's hand as he massages his stiff leg.

"Are you alright?" she asks. "The vomiting..."

"Purely emotional," he dismisses it quickly, his eyes still watching nothing more than the linoleum tile floor. An awkward, angry silence. "Do you really think I could be responsible for his death?

Molly is about to shoot the entire idea down when she receives another text. Something in her tosses nervously and she decides to do just as Sherlock says this time around – though, it's no different than what she herself had planned.

**Deny it now. This is why you should do precisely as I say. – SH**

"No, no," she renounces quickly. "Not at all. I'm sorry. It had to be Moriarty somehow." Molly takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. "I just meant that... he cared about you. You were the only one that really mattered to him." John nods, but it's defensiveness instead of agreement behind the movement. As he slips off his stool, a groan escapes his lips and his eyes flutter shut; his leg seems just as bad as it had been outside and worries Molly to the point of meddling.

"What happened?" she asks carefully. She's already offended him enough today, she reckons, and Molly's never been very good with this sort of thing. "You leg, I mean. You were perfectly fit the last time I saw you. Was there an accident since then...?"

She wants to ask if he's done it himself, but if he says yes, she doesn't know what to do.

Much to her surprise, John smirks and then laughs. It's humorless, and a grimace sits firmly in his eyes, but he laughs nonetheless. "No," he tags at the end of his dry chuckles. "It's from my service in Afghanistan. Psychosomatic – apparently, I thrive on danger. That's what kept me with Sherlock through everything. We're good for each other. Without a case, his mind destroys itself; I become a cripple."

His hand is tense on the lab table and his eyes have closed, but Molly can't fool herself; she's relieved by his words, even though there's no resolution in sight for the good doctor. This must be the motivation for Sherlock's actions – his need to keep up the game. She had previously assumed that the idea had been crafted by a mix of sympathy towards John and utter boredom, but this changes things. Now, it's less cruel: it must be a game. To keep John on his feet – literally – it must be exciting and dangerous. And, to keep Sherlock's mind from self-destructing, it must be clever.

"Why don't you become an active army surgeon again?" she suggests. It is a harmless idea; no one really wants John to return to the battlefield, and he won't. But it must have crossed his mind sometime in the previous two weeks as he suffered, right? Besides, even if he does try to enlist, Sherlock will stop him somehow.

John taps his leg with the cane, grimacing down at it. "I received an honorable discharge, though not because of this old thing." He admits. "It was a wound to my shoulder. They won't take me back. I'm a lot weaker than I used to be, and I'm fine shooting a gun in an urban setting, but in total war I'm defective."

"You're a doctor, John" she argues, frowning. "How did you get injured, and how should they expect you to fight? That's not your job."

"I'm not incompetent, if I'm there I should be able to bear arms just like everyone else," he says, eyes narrowed. "I had bad days. If I was any good as a doctor, I wouldn't have ever let myself get addicted to danger."

"You've done well by Sherlock," Molly murmurs, but he doesn't hear her and she feels like he doesn't need to. "We ought to get you cleaned up," she adds, and he listens this time. John smiles gratefully as she brings him a wet paper towel to mop up his drying blood. Rubbing alcohol follows soon after, and soon the good doctor has been patched up by his friend the mortician. He examines his tender, twitching hands as he works, pausing in his intense gaze to sometimes flash sheepish grins up at her. They've fallen into silence again, and Molly knows it's embarrassment and grief on John's behalf. She just has nothing safe to say.

A pregnant pause bounces between them. Molly examines the white walls and sighs to herself. A clock ticks methodically, but there's no other sound. The room is still – it's silent. If only it wouldn't give her a terrible reputation, she'd say it's relaxing.

"There you are," finalizes her handiwork as the taps adhesive medical tape onto his cheek, securing the gauze over his scrape. "Good as new."

"My leg and shoulder are fine then, too?" John asks, casting her a humorless smirk. There he goes again feeling sorry for himself. He doesn't mention the intermittent tremor, even though she's recognized it. There must be so much in his mind, warping and twisting his very reality... A man who wishes to return to war, danger, the center of casualties and gore.. There's something terribly wrong with him. He's defective in that sense, programmed incorrectly, just like Sherlock.

Molly can't imagine being like that. Working in the mortuary has made her hard, but not fueled a craving for more. She doesn't want to see more deaths. She doesn't wish for people to die, and she certainly can't block out the pity when they send her a particularly tragic corpse. It's an interest in science that powers her career, not an addiction to pain. She's not masochistic, although sometimes loving Sherlock makes her feel like she is. She's not sadistic, either, and she wishes to stay that way. With all the words crammed into her mind, Molly can't say what John is – neither can she say what Sherlock is – but she knows whatever it is, it doesn't describe her at all.

As she comes back to reality, she realizes that John has his coat on and his cane is in his hand. "Are you leaving already?" slips off her lips. He's not been there for an hour, and he's preparing himself for the journey home. John stares up at her, confused. He doesn't realize, does he? He's already running back to the flat. Already giving up and going back to his sanctuary. His shrine to everything Sherlock. It's not healthy. In fact, this game that Sherlock's proposing... That's not healthy, either. It won't end well for either of them. But she's agreed to help, and for now, until she can think of another way, she'll comply. Maybe Sherlock will prove her wrong.

He normally does.

"I was going to," John answers. Uncertainty hangs in his eyes; he doesn't know what to do. "Of course, I don't have cab fare, either, so I suppose I'm subject to your whim."

Molly smirks, but at the same time she reaches into her pocket and pulls out another thirty pounds. Really, he's lucky she has all this cash on her today. "There," she says as he holds it out for him. "But I trust you'll get yourself back on track soon, doctor."

Usually, John is a proud man. He doesn't accept money unless it's due, but now with his busted leg and no real way to get home, it only takes a moment of waving the bills in front of him for him to give in and take the cash. "A job's the first thing on my list," he says, if only to help his conscience a little, "and right after that is giving you fifty-five pounds, Molly."

She nods, but it doesn't matter either way. This job is steady; she'll survive without that money. It's not enough to do much of anything with. It won't put her out too much, not more than her overwhelming guilt. John leaves the room, but he doesn't offer her a smile. There's tension now; she should never have been so blunt with him. He's right – it was hurtful. But what Sherlock's doing is worse by far. As she goes back to her work, Molly has half a mind to tell him that. A grumble passes her lips as she pulls on her lab coat and begins to examine specimens.

"That damn bloody genius," she mumbles to herself. "Don't get too worked up, Molly. You'll crack the slide." So the rest of the time, she holds her emotions in and refuses to talk to herself anymore. Bad influence. She's become such a bad influence on herself.

As she works, that damn bloody genius slips out from a corner of the room and shoots a hard look at a security camera. He knows it's wired to show an old clip of Molly working – he has to be mindful of others discovering the truth, even if he's leading John to it like a horse to water, the endeavor so far as fruitful as the common expression – but he doesn't trust the thing. Nothing is trustworthy. At least the outdated piece of equipment is more observant, he tells himself. The mortician doesn't notice as he pulls on a hat and shorter coat and exits the building entirely because she's dull. He'll see her tonight, when she returns from work. He can make fun of her then. For now, his violin beckons.

It'll be almost as soothing to play it as it was to hear John's voice again.

* * *

><p>She can't remember the last time she took the Underground, but Molly now remembers why. It's with a scowl that she emerges from under the street and heads towards her apartment. The stop is a good walk from her house, but rest assured that's not the only reason. No, today Molly had met a whole other class of people that she had forgotten the existence of: those who were still in the dark about the invention of soap. There had also been a gang of rowdy boys intent on making a stink of things, and it had been crowded. Very crowded. Probably because the train had run late.<p>

"Terrible," she mutters to herself. "Absolutely terrible." She regrets giving John all of her money. It was nice, but in retrospect the tube... Dear Lord. That wasn't worth the Good Samaritan points she had earned from the deed. Honestly, she had most-likely lost them all on her ride home. Really, all that was missing from the scene was a bloody man with a whale harpoon.

With a huff, Molly lets herself into her apartment building and climbs the stairs to her third-floor flat. As she's about to unlock her door, Mrs. Stone, the elderly lady living next to her, taps her on the shoulder. A frown is set deep into her face, and though she's overrun with wrinkles, Molly can't say a single one of them is from laughing.

"You should turn your stereo off when you leave for work, Amelia," she advises. A nod to the door marked 311 accompanies her statement, but it means nothing to Molly. Really, there are a thousand and one complaints she could fight this woman with, but she doesn't feel like wasting her breath at all. It was too miserable of a day.

"I haven't left any music on," she says dully, unlocking the door. As she does, the screech of a violin erupts into the hall – yes, from her flat – and Mrs. Stone's frown seems to be carved into her face. "Oh, right. Sherlock, be quiet!" Molly knows it won't work, but she at least has to try. As if he's offended, the music has stopped, and she quickly bids a good evening to her neighbor and steps into the foyer, closing the door soundly behind her. Just as she always must, now that she has a dead flatmate, she locks and bolts the door. Just in case.

Inside, Sherlock is standing by the window, the violin dropped from his shoulder as he waits for her disdainfully. He drops the instrument to the couch, but only so that he can pull his bow along a block of rosin before beginning to play again. This time's it's a structured piece, and a bit less like a dying cat.

"You shouldn't shout my name around, Molly," he snaps. "You've been careless enough today, haven't you? When we read in the papers tomorrow that the good Dr. John Watson has been gunned down, you'll have been the one who put the bullet there."

Molly scowls and pulls off the extra layers she had donned to brave the cold. It's not her fault that John has to feel such pain – she isn't attracted to the pointless games that had led them to this in the first place. No, that is solely Sherlock's responsibility. He probably knows that. He also must know that she understands – that she's thinking exactly this right now.

"Sherlock, just don't play so loud," Molly replies as she strips off her woolen coat and heads to the loo. "Try not to bother my neighbors, please. I don't fancy being evicted."

"If any of them had any taste in music, it wouldn't be a bother," he argues back, and Molly feels the strong urge to lunge at him and rip the violin from under his chin and the manipulation of his long, spindly fingers. Before she can, he stops playing and, setting the prized instrument and its bow aside, walks gracefully to Molly's laptop. Less gracefully, he flops into a chair and drags it onto his lap.

"Hey!" she shouts as he opens it and logs onto her account without err or pause. "Leave that alone – or at least ask for the password!" It's embarrassing that he can guess so quickly, and Molly doesn't like it. Can't he just ask her to do it instead?

In response, Sherlock mutters something under his breath that sounds a good bit like a weighted, "Dull." Typing quickly, when he finishes there is a live video feed flickering to life in a small window on the screen. Molly stomps over, still quite peeved, to watch his work and recognizes the cluttered innards of 221B. It looks much less cheerful without the Christmas decorations that John had put up which adorned her only memory of the flat, but perhaps that was just of John's harrowing influence. The good doctor doesn't haunt the sitting room, so Sherlock begins to type again and a second window appears with the kitchen. No luck, so a third of John's room, then a fourth of the hallway. This continues with every nook and cranny and angle of 221B – including the bathroom, which Molly finds despicable – until Sherlock's bedroom wields proof of the man in question. He sits on the side of the bed, rocking gently and turning something over in his worn fingers. It's Sherlock's skull friend, whose name at the time of his owner's death was Benedict. Perhaps John has renamed it since then – Sherlock had never stuck on a name for him for more than a couple days – but he doubts it. John speaks to it, and although there is no microphone in any of the cameras littered throughout the house, both Sherlock and Molly can read his lips.

"What if he didn't die? What if he's alive?"

Molly can't stand to watch what she has done to the poor man and crosses the floor as if it were made of hot coats. Sherlock continues to watch, half-smiling, half-grimacing. John stands with the skull and limps out the door. The genius switches from screen to screen to watch him make his way to the sitting room, and only when he opens his laptop does Sherlock begin to laugh.

She rushes in because she knows just how cruel-minded Sherlock can be. "Sherlock, what is it?" He turns and beams at her – really, truly beams at her, Molly – and brings up John's blog, bookmarked in the top of Molly's browser.

"He's taking the bait, Molly!" he exclaims. Nothing is new on the blog yet, so Sherlock puts the computer aside and stands. Molly shuffles back to get out of his way. "He's playing the game! It won't be too long now, my brilliant John.. I must think."

As he picks up his violin and begins to play, Molly retreats to her bedroom with tears in her eyes. His new tune is lively and sweet – Sheherazade – and she can't help but hate it. Sherlock's words seep into her mind, twist her stomach, pull at her heart, and she sobs into her pillow.

_'My brilliant John...'_

* * *

><p>And there's the end of Chapter Two! Thank you so much for reading. You should review. Yes yes. It's going to get really exciting soon, so come back! Until next time.<p>

- Phyre


	4. The Flight of the Valkyrie

**Title: **Synapses

**Author: **BluePhyre

**Rating: **T

**Genre: **Angst, Adventure

**Summary: **The suicide of Sherlock leaves his associate and only friend, Dr. Watson, crippled and depressed. To save him, Holmes assumes the role he's carefully avoided for years. Criminal. Puppeteer. He is Moriarty. He will be, for John. Jocklock, Post-Reichenbach.

**Disclaimer: I own no version of Sherlock Holmes, and neither do I own the lyrics below. They are, as always, the property of Motion City Soundtrack.**

**Author's Note: **I'm really sorry for being over a week late with this chapter :/ It's really not okay, because I need the schedule to keep up with everything. But I didn't have the chapter done, and I figured that I would have this chapter looked over to prevent typos and whatnot. So it has been... Somewhat beta'd? I suppose, yeah. Not entirely, though. I'm thinking about transitioning to a shorter updating schedule, perhaps twice a week, but I don't know. If I can't even update every Monday like I intended to... Ehhh. Well, I'm sure it doesn't matter too much as I have about five people paying attention to this XD

This is a decently sized chapter, I must say. I always aim for about 5000 words, and this is nearly 7000, I believe. So maybe I'm making up for how long it took? :P Next update's going to be a big one, so hang in there. I really hope you enjoy the chapter! :D Read and review, please and thank you ;)

* * *

><p>"<em>I always knew I had the answer<br>__But I never understood the question.  
><em>Indoor living, lacerated to the bone<br>_And now we realigned the edges  
><em>I'm doing very well, I thank you.<br>_All this sympathy is starting  
><em>To wear me down."<em>_____

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Three: The Flight of the Valkyrie<strong>

John snores mildly as he sits sprawled out in his favorite armchair, his Samsung laptop warning his thighs comfortingly as they both sleep. It is almost morning, and the sun smiles softly at London from just beyond the horizon. The sky is a beautiful, pale yellow-pink, a chilling sorbet, and winter birds sing sweetly to the awakening city. There are so many things John could have been doing before he drifted away into dreams – fruitful things like searching for a job, mindless things like playing Spider Solitaire, desperate things like writing on his blog – but the screen is angled so that the lights of his screensaver dance their fluid waltz across his stomach. No matter how many cameras there are in the room, surveillance cannot provide an answer. The unknowable truth is John was researching ways to track down the true living dead – the men and women who had faked their deaths. The truth is John was failing. Thus, his reluctant escape to sleep.

There is no surefire way to find a man who doesn't want to be found, no rulebook to go by – and even then, Sherlock is no average man. He is smarter and much more cunning than anyone who even dreamed of faking their death before, and John is quite positive that he does not wish to be discovered in his deceit. How, then, can he corner him into existence? The first move, he had decided before relinquishing to sleep's inevitable grasp, is to have Sherlock's grave excavated and the body examined, if there even if a body at all. But how does one even go about getting that permission?

The birds begin to sing louder as the shy British sun rises to observe the London winter ebbing on. At the height of their music, John wakes. Their compositions are unstructured, like most of Sherlock's works. They have no tempo, no time signature, no key. But the birds are sweeter than Sherlock – his songs are always ever-changing with his whim, a musical personification of his restless mind. For this reason, they are almost always chaotic, minor, dark, mysterious. John knows better from his life with the sociopath that he was not a sociopath as he led others to believe and that the melodies he pulled at random from the depths of his violin were not random at all. They had always been the one true, uncorrupted window to that little thing that he swore not to have: His heart.

As he pushes himself out of his chair, John does not notice how light his limp or or how he hasn't grabbed his cane or tipped unbalanced into the wall because of it. It is not entirely gone, his psychological-based handicap, but it is much better today than it had been yesterday or the day before or at all since Sherlock's death. It is manageable, even. First, John reaches the stereo and presses a couple buttons. The Probus Mendens Concerto begins again. Next, as Sherlock announces the piece and strikes the first few notes out of his instrument, he makes his way to the kitchen.

Tea, toast, and jam follow, and then a quick shower, a shave, a brushing of teeth. Even when the concerto ends, it repeats just as he has intended it to and John begins to learn the tune by heart, to hum along with it, to tap out what would be a snare beat under it. He smiles, because even though he as yet to find any evidence suggesting Sherlock's survival, he has something just as vital: Hope.

However, he still does not have any money lying about the flat, so he grabs his coat – elbow patches and all – and limps to the ATM a couple blocks down the street. John is mildly disappointed when Anthea does not roll up to the curb in a sleek black town car, and the transaction between man and computer – something he has never been good at, even before Sherlock – goes off without a hitch. It is not because he still pines for the beautiful assistant; that crush ended almost as soon as she forgot his name within a fortnight. It is certainly not because he misses Mycroft, either. No, he will never entirely forgive that bastard. His meddlesome nature, however, was fueled by love for his younger brother, and the lack of surveillance or contact between the entirety of the British government and John tells him that Mycroft truly believes Sherlock to be dead.

"I hope he ruddy hates himself," he informs the machine before turning to the street and hailing a cab. John leaves a moment of thought between the curb and the cab door to the matter of rationing the rest of his money, of conserving it, but perhaps he will just forgo eating instead. Best to think like Sherlock to find Sherlock.

Perhaps, then, he is going about this entirely wrong, but John still instructs the cabbie to take him to New Scotland Yard. Sherlock would never stoop so low as to ask the police for help – it was always the opposite when they thought he was alive – but John does not want to enlarge his criminal record, and cooperating with the force seems to be the only way to prevent that.

As he steps out of his cab, he must say that it has been a fruitless ride for his mind. Most cab rides are simply because he is not Sherlock, but now it is his duty to do the thinking. The great glass building looms down over John, but he does not waste any time marveling in its grandeur. He has been here too often, and honestly he has seen more impressive sights. Afghanistan was a whole world of dark thoughts, but some moments were glorious. Some moments were worth remembering, like so many sunsets over the desert and the mountains in the distance, the smile of a little girl swathed in scarves, bustling bazaars radiating with life and happiness even in such hard times. But these shining thoughts were punctuated with the blood of the young soldiers John didn't save, or the Afghan people who suffered so much more than even the lowliest Brits could imagine.

Security jumps to action as he steps through the front doors and prepares himself for the metal detector. One of the men greets John – a testament to the frequency of his visits – and he is quickly cleared for entrance. Soon, he stands in front of Lestrade's closed office door, wondering how he should approach the man after two excruciating weeks of grief. As he thinks, hand posed in a fist before the wood, the graying man he has come to visit steps quietly into his shadow and smiles sadly, unnoticed from behind.

"John," he identifies his visitor, knowing the man by his stature, his height, his hair. The good doctor jumps out of his skin, if only for a small, salvageable moment, and he turns to meet the detective inspector's gaze evenly.

"Hello," he replies calmly. It is a bit emotionless, his voice, and Lestrade frowns. If only John's voice was lower, he would have thought it was Sherlock he was speaking to. Even as a nearly functioning member of society, John cannot muster an authentic grin so he does not bother to try. The man across from him does not look too well, either. Dark circles have collected under his bloodshot eyes, and his worn suit strains against his body. The smell of cigarette smoke and alcohol hang lightly around him. John would ask what bothers him, but he does not mean to pry and there is already a decent chance that he knows the answer. For a moment, he shrugs it off with the sole reasoning that Sherlock will soon enlighten him to the situation that he must have so clearly missed. When the truth sinks into his mind only seconds later, the good doctor closes his eyes and sighs. His day is just a little worse. Still, hope lingers in his mind and it cries out to him to carry on because he must. He is British and he is strong. He must.

"Can we talk?" he asks carefully.

The detective inspector agrees with just as much caution and unlocks his door for the both of them before ushering John in. The room isn't large at all, hosting only an understated wooden desk and three chairs. There are very few personal items decorating the office, and it's dull. Just... dull.

Lestrade sits at his desk firmly as John takes the seat directly across and he asks the blonde man, "How are you coping?" It's just like another meeting with his psychologist, John thinks, and the notion makes him a little more than sick to his stomach. It could always be worse, though. He can still recall the one time he accepted coffee in the Yard. Sherlock had made fun of him and his "weak constitution" for days.

"Stable," is his reply, shrouded in vagueness His hands fold in on each other and he takes in Lestrade's degenerating appearance again. He feels it acceptable to pry because Lestrade isn't some suspect; he's a friend. "I'd say I look better than you, Greg. Should I be asking you the same?

Sherlock and his favorite detective inspector never played well with each other, even when it was necessary, but that did not mean for a moment that Lestrade should be immune to the grief of the man's death. John had so easily forgotten that he was not the only affected one; up until this point, his own self-pity blinded him. He ignored the emotions of Molly, Mrs. Hudson, Mycroft, and Lestrade. As he thinks about this in New Scotland Yard, he reckons Anderson and Donovan might feel a bit responsible for Sherlock's suicide as well. He claimed not to have friends – "I've just got one," he had told John once – but then why are so many people left wounded in the wake of his leap? Selfishness. That's what it had been: an act of selfishness.

"Well, I'm not dying, if that's what you're implying," Lestrade replies, watching John as he thinks about how exactly he feels. The words hit somewhere soft and vulnerable in the doctor, and he sighs internally. Oh well. "Before Sherlock's arrest, Anderson and Donovan reported to my superior on exactly how often I utilized a consulting detective and how suspicious he turned out to be. Since then, my life has been made Hell here. A demotion, terrible assignments, no respect..."

He glares out of the open office door, knowing very well that both Sally and Anderson can hear him. John sees new meaning in the emptied office; Greg must be cleaning it out to move into the workspace of the grunts, with no walls and shared desks and everything horrifying about office life. The good doctor thinks of his profession and feels grateful. And then, the images of dying soldiers and crying families rebound off the walls of his skull and he must close his eyes to quell the horrors. In the darkness behind his eyelids, he sees Sherlock instead, his face smeared with blood and his eyes open, lifeless. Oh, those eyes – not quite green, not quite blue, but too much of both to be gray. They haunt his soul, and John decides that he prefers the memories of dead soldiers. He opens his eyes and is Lestrade sending him a pitying glance.

"It's a shame I only punched the inspector, then." It's a remark John meant to air before the barrage of foul, bloodstained memories. A smirk hangs on his lips as if he's a child with one too many secrets to keep entirely quiet, but it doesn't reach his eyes. "It bothers me when they doubt him, all of then," he admits. "How could anyone pretend to be so brilliant so consistently?"

When Lestrade laughs, it is with less humor than John intended to instill in him and adds, "Or such an ass." They both fall silent in the following moments, smirking in their shared mirth at first then slowly descending to the blank faces and twitching, useless fingers. The second hand waltzes rhythmically around the face of Lestrade's desk clock. John really does look better than him; the doctor's hygiene is more attentively cared for and his eyes shine with a little more life than Greg seems to have at all. As much thinner as John has gotten, Lestrade has gotten thicker. A secret of his brand of depression displayed to the world in his girth: he eats when he is upset. Or perhaps his gut swells with the excessive nature of liquor instead? John watches his suit buttons strain and the fabric pucker as she shifts in his seat and thinks of Harry first, drunken but slimmer than her awkward teenage years, and then of Mycroft. How fat the elder Holmes must be, gorged and puffed like a songbird in winter because of his younger brother's death. Sherlock would say it's because of his penchant for sweets, but John suddenly isn't as kind and thinks he is just full of shit instead.

"Why have you come here?" Lestrade finally asks as John smirks at Mycroft's expense. The silence breaks between them, but it was never truly soundless as phone calls come and go consistently in the large office space outside. Other policemen and women engage in conversation idly, adding to the very dull roar. There's a stillness yet, and if feels as if everyone is listening to the two men in the corner office with the casually opened door. John wonders in some small – but recently quite dominant, now that there's no Sherlock to offend everyone – impolite corner of his mind why these people are England's finest.

In truth, only three men and one woman strain now to hear him, and one of them is Lestrade. "I need Sherlock's grave exhumed," they all hear him say. The graying detective is the only one in the hot seat, and he doesn't know what to say as he gapes as John. He wonders not entirely passively whether the good doctor before him as gone mad with grief and idleness, and he examines him. John is well-groomed and dressed in his usual outfit of a woolly jumper and slacks. There is no bias between his legs or between his hands which had marked him damaged when they first met. It's as if Sherlock's time and Sherlock's improvements on him have not passed in John's eyes, and that is what truly concerns him. Finally, Lestrade stumbles upon words.

"What?" he asks so eloquently. "John, you've had all the time in the world to say your goodbyes, and I don't think it's in your best interest to see Sherlock again. Not like that..." He shudders to imagine the scene. In his mind, the good doctor crumples at the sight. He breaks and withers – dies just as much as Sherlock has. "You know he's worm food now, don't you? Decomposition and all..."

John knows this – any body buried two weeks ago will have begun to decompose, no matter exactly how well they've embalmed it. By now, the body – whatever body is down there – will have swelled substantially. It strikes him as odd, the thought of Sherlock looking anything less than entirely emaciated. But no, it's not Sherlock down there anyway. Just another body to replace him, or perhaps there is no body at all. It could have been a well-made dummy at the wake... Or right now in that coffin there could be bricks. It wouldn't take too many to simulate Sherlock's weight... What an honorable burial for slabs of earth. They are back where they belong and where Sherlock should never be: in the ground.

A mental image of a fat Sherlock – not swelled from death, but instead perhaps from cake like his elder brother – creeps its way back into John's mind and he titters quietly to himself. How twisted Lestrade must think him to be. No, no – he does not want to say his very last goodbye to a swelled, decaying face. There will never be that finality between the two flatmates, and if he really wants to, John can just talk to his headstone some more. It has kept his secrets well, all those things he whispered to it as Mrs. Hudson returned to the waiting town car. What a loyal headstone it is – and a handsome one, too. Sleek and dark, just like Sherlock was.

No, no... Just like Sherlock is.

"No!" John protests, the remnants of a smirk sailing across and off his worn face. "No, I'm trying to discern how Sherlock faked his death, and I just need to see that someone else is buried in his grave, or that no one's there at all–"

Lestrade's soft brown eyes widen to a point that might have been comical if it were not for the situation before he manages to choke out a weak and startled, "You've got to be kidding me!" John attempts to counter the detective's thoughts with his own, but the efforts are in vain as Greg is no longer tripping over words. "He's dead, John," he continued, begging his friend to see the truth. "You saw him jump and fall and collide with the ground. You saw him die, and I've never been sure exactly what was going on between you two, but whatever it is it's over. You can't delude yourself like this because I simply won't let you – not even in the sake of shock. I'm sorry, but Sherlock is dead."

For an antagonizing moment, the words register with John because it is true. They nip at his fragile heart and his overwhelmed mind, trying to find their way into his soul and his emotions – the world he's created for himself inside the walls. They mean to destroy him him because he had seen Sherlock jump. He had watched it with his own two eyes. He had been the only one to hear Sherlock's farewell, been the medium through which he said his goodbyes to the world.

But next, it hits him like a train. A glorious, wonderful, amazing train. No, it hits him like the truth: It's hope. Sherlock had told him to stay exactly where he stood and he had told him to watch. In fact, he had insisted so twice. As he jumped, as he fell, the detective's impact with the concrete had been blocked by a low-lying brick building, and behind that a truck. Perhaps he had planned this specific detail – of course he did! - and perhaps it wasn't Sherlock's small, final act of kindness towards John. Perhaps it wasn't sparing John one more bit of gore, because he never did that. Their entire relationship functioned around the gruesome acts of mankind. No, it had been his intention, his obvious, clear intention, to fool John. And, in fooling John, he knew he would lead him to the truth in due time.

"That's it!" John exclaims, and Lestrade's chair rolls back inconspicuously on the floor as he jumps in shock. "I didn't see him hit the ground!" Police outside the small office stare within openly now, their attentions entirely trained on the good doctor and his mad, Holmesian rambling. "I think that was the point, Greg. He couldn't say it for some reason, but he meant it. 'See me not die,' he was telling me. It was so brilliant!" He nearly whoops with joy and knowledge, caught in the rush that was usually reserved for the consulting detective. "Of course it was brilliant, it's Sherlock. But how, then? How did he survive?"

"John," Lestrade says slowly, as if to reason with the doctor descending into conspiracy and madness. "He didn't..." But John has already stood up, hazel eyes alight with new possibilities and resolved hopes and two legs entirely unhindered.

"But he did, Greg. He did!" The blonde grabs his coat from the back of his chair and shrugs it on with some difficulty. "Perfect – thank you. I'll let you know of any leads. Don't worry, I'll figure it all out. I know he wants me to now, and that's... that's amazing."

At this point, Lestrade recognizes the state John is in – it's the near-orgasmic glee Sherlock displays during particularly clever cases – and knows that he can do absolutely nothing but sit on his backside and hope that no one else dies. A deranged Watson forces his jacket harshly up his arms and over his broad shoulders and rushes off without another word. Presumably, the man leaves New Scotland Yard freshly emboldened in a search for further clues towards Sherlock's greatest truck. Greg is absolutely convinced that he will find nothing. He tells himself that, because it's entirely hopeless; the man is dead because he was a man, even if Lestrade has always wanted to believe otherwise. John has simply drifted from loneliness into lunacy, and he must remind himself to squash that little voice of hope back into its cage.

There is no more Sherlock Holmes, and yet Lestrade keeps this meeting in the forefront of his mind. He resolves internally to watch out for the good doctor from now on, to take care of him as Sherlock would have wanted but never admitted or requested. At this precise moment, though, it is vital that he gets back to work. He will let John tire himself out a little first, like a small child on the playground, before reining him in.

His phone rings just as John disappears out of sight, though the timing doesn't register as odd to the detective inspector. He answers it as usual – a curt "Greg Lestrade," and a more considerate pause – and pulls out his notepad as he crushes he receiver to his ear with his shoulder. The movement is made difficult by the constriction of his blazer. Over his domestic struggle, a smooth voice identifies itself as that of "Mycroft Holmes" who simply "has a couple questions" but also instructs the good inspector to "wait for Anthea." A very beautiful woman enters the office immediately after – this time, it seems unusual, her punctuality – to whisk Lestrade away. As he smiles at her and fingers his wedding ring, he doesn't notice an unauthorized man with a gun leave the floor casually. In fact, no one notices. If they had, perhaps they would have recognized the face from just once before: the day Sherlock Holmes died.

* * *

><p>It's nearly time for Molly to return to the flat, but Sherlock doesn't want company. His violin lounges luxuriously on her hideous, springy sofa simply because it not comfortable enough to think upon and, for the first time in so long, his beloved instrument has gotten him nowhere exciting or new. But the blame... He rests it on the shoulders of none other than the eternally insufferable John H. Watson.<p>

How dare he leave the flat without reporting his plans on his precious blog! How dare he not visit Molly, not inform her in length on his thoughts and by extension not inform Sherlock himself. No, no – it's not just that. Sherlock can calculate by watching the small, unimportant idiots that walk by his window and the position of the sun in the sky and the weather that Molly will be returning within a five-to-ten minute period. But John... John has inadvertently avoided all of the security cameras that Sherlock has taken his time tapping into, avoided all of the Baker Street Irregulars, staved off every single agent of the Homeless Network. He is nowhere to be found, but he must be somewhere in London! He must! If Sherlock wasn't so brilliant, he would say John has already found him out and is simply toying with him, playing the game too well. But the younger Holmes is much cleverer than his faithful blogger, even if John is the cleverest normal human he's ever met, and he can't know yet... He just can't.

It drives Sherlock to madness to go without knowing something, to find himself unable to deduce anything of the situation, so he finally draws away from the window. He has not decided to sulk elsewhere – no, what he thinks of now is far more dramatic and far more dangerous. Never has the consulting detective yearned for the outdoors. It has always been a vaguer sense of need than that; stimulation can come from anywhere in the world, inside or out. But he is venturing out, despite his state of "death," because it seems to be the only way to collect more data.

"John," he mutters to himself as he rifles through Molly's coat closet. It's a sound-check, he assures himself, and repeats in a slightly higher voice. He must create his disguise now. Sherlock can't wear his trademark trench coat because he is aware that everyone knows of it. Absolutely everyone. It's nauseating, actually, though not as much as the stupid deerstalker he wore once. However, he finds nothing else in Molly's entire house that even comes close to accommodating his monolithic height and he settles for a subtler change. Instead of his usual navy scarf, he chooses a rather feminine Burberry one, despite how flimsy it seems to be, and tugs on an androgynous ivy cap over his dark curls. He stops to stare in the mirror on his way out and realizes that absolutely nothing has changed in his appearance. Of course – what did he expect? Well, he will work on it for next time.

It doesn't matter too much right now, because it is dark out and he will be shrouded in at least as much mystery as the shadows can offer him. Examining his stark jawline and angled cheekbones in the mirror as he passes, Sherlock imagines that there aren't many people who look like him. He'll just keep his head down for now, and from now on he'll refrain from shaving. Then at least a beard will hide some of his most distinctive features.

It's still with uncertainty and absolutely no plan – though, he would never admit to it – that Sherlock walks out of Molly's flat At the same time, a crossly gaping old woman stands at an identical wooden door a couple of feet over, key in the knob. As he closes the door softly, she hears the lock click and catches sight of him. Her stare is endless once it is on him, and disappointment resonates in her eyes. This is a woman who believes in propriety – in the old ways.

The very small portion of the consulting detective that possesses any etiquette and charm whatsoever emerges from its long nap and a handsomely wide smile blossoms across Sherlock's face. He knows he is adorable, and he knows he is endearing. It's the best weapon in his arsenal for this specific moment, but he has used his wily, toothless grin on women – and John – before and never have his desires evaded him.

"Hello," he chirps pleasantly from between his lips, as if he was taken by surprise by her presence, and Sherlock withers within himself. This is painstaking. Mrs. Stone – he doesn't know her by face, but instead a passing glance at the buzzer system downstairs and a common knowledge of room numbers – doesn't return his grin or his greeting. In fact, her frown sets deeper into her thinly pursed lips. She might be put off by a strange man emerging from Molly's rooms or a nagging suspicion that the music was indeed performed live, and by the very man in front of her. Sherlock decides it is both, because she has dressed in her best to shop and he had heard her yesterday complaining about his music. Who complains about such beauty?

"I don't believe we've met," he continues, hoping to salvage the moment and make his escape. "I'm Rupert Hooper, Molly's brother." Still the woman does not move. Doubt riots in his belly, and it is unwelcome but not new. "I came into a bit of marital trouble. Molly offered me a place to stay while James cools off." Nothing. Not even slight surprise or disgust towards the orientation he has insinuated. He honestly expected that to get her. "Really, she must have mentioned me..."

He gives up as she makes no move to either enter her home or the conversation Sherlock was so obviously dangling in front of her – like a piece of meat in front of a dog. With a spin on his heel, he begins the journey down the hall to the stairs and lets the incident slip through the tightly sealed cracks of his mind, out of his memories. Marked unimportant, almost deleted, the conversation is nearly history to him when Mrs. Stone calls after him and he drags it all back to the forefront of his attentions.

"You're supposed to be dead," she states as if the thought stirs from somewhere inside distant memories, and immediately she has captivated Sherlock entirely. No glitch in his character emerges when he laughs and asks her what ever could she mean, but somewhere underneath the purely thespian disguise he panics. Of course she knows him. She's of the age to comb through newspapers – to have enough time to do it. Her fingertips are thickly padded and her eyes strain as if she's been reading intently for all of her life. Yes, she reads the papers. Her age lies somewhere between the beginning of senility and Alzheimer's. If he is lucky, she can be belittled and his secret will be kept safe. But if not...

"Pardon?" Sherlock asks casually, the ghost of a smile haunting his features. Mrs. Stone shrinks under his gaze, despite his attempts to stay docile. It must be his eyes – they have always been objects of unrest with others. His own skin crawls, because there is so little that he can do now. Hopelessness is nauseating as it overtakes him – an emotion that he loathes.

The elderly woman opens her door and says, as if he should know, "Molly said her brother died last November." Sherlock feels as if he is deflating in relief. He supposes he, as Rupert Hooper, ought to know of his own death, and the new information nags at his mind even as he relaxes. He had never known that Molly had a brother, though a year prior would have put her in the midst of his life. She would have mentioned her own brother's death... Normal people did that, right? Then he must have deleted it, or not given it a home at all in his mind palace. Only important things are ever stored there, and how could he have foreseen this purpose? Like the stars, it is a wild coincidence. Nothing more.

"I believe 'almost' belongs somewhere in there, ma'am," Sherlock corrects politely, smiling wider once more. He will be fine. "I'm lucky – they thought I was going to die, but they were wrong. How cruel it would have been, just after losing Father..." Now that conversation he remembers clearly, stored away in that horrible room for that horrible day. Molly had mentioned John, offered help, talked about her father's death... And then Sherlock had deleted the rest to make room for the wonder that had been John that day. Poor, wounded John...

Mrs. Stone, however, does not look amused as Sherlock imagines he must, and she scowls all the time she mutters, "Her father died several years ago." The consulting detective frowns and wishes her ill each moment she opens her mouth. Why does she know so much more about Molly's life than he does? It is not as if they are friends. Does she consider her neighbor's suffering important enough to keep in her mind palace? No – she cannot have one. She is like everyone else, packing useless facts in her small, dull mind until it is unable to function. To be brutally honest, Sherlock knows nothing of Molly because he doesn't care to deduce her. She's too easy and too boring – an open book. If only he asked, she would tell him everything. Where is the fun in that?

A shadow of regret coasts across his face, and he looks into Mrs. Stone's eyes and says with all the truth in his heart, "You never really recover from the death of a loved one. It sticks and stays – it's always fresh and new, like he's just died in front of you all over again." A shuddery breath passes across his bowed lips and he sees John's face, tear-streaked and lost. "At least that's how he feels."

Sherlock walks off, down the stairs, out of the building, onto the sidewalk, and the statement follows closely behind him all the way. What did he even mean by it? He certainly hadn't intended to say any of that – something had taken hold of him and refused to let go. It was psycho-babble, wasn't it? Nothing more than a line fed to quiet Mrs. Stone's suspicions. But even that is so ludicrous; Sherlock Holmes doesn't create suspicion. He is subtle and silent and a man so gifted in the art of disguise. But now, he isn't any of that. Now, he is slipping in his skills of deduction and all that came with them. Sentiment corrodes and corrupts and when it reaches past his so many walls of defense, when it hits his heart, it spreads like a poison. The emotions...

A man in a long woolen coat, a Burberry print scarf, and an ivy cap shrugs as he storms down the street, unaccompanied and lost in the palace that is his mind. He is startled from his trance-like state as someone shouts, "Sherlock!" and dashes after him.

"Molly!" he bellows, bristling in rage. She realizes her mistake as she reaches him, but it is too late to recall it. "If you get anyone killed," he informs her, "I will slaughter you." He has been bored out of his mind for the past two weeks and she has a notion that anyone murdered by Sherlock Holmes would end up as a very cold case, so she apologizes immediately and tries not to cry.

"Why are you out, then?" she asks through her tears – it's been another stressful, guilt-ridden day. Her teeth tear at her sensitive lips as the watches his face for any hint towards the truth, because he will most-definitely lie to her. He always does. "If you're spotted..."

He interrupts her with, "Only Mycroft would discover me here on the streets, and I believe my death has driven him to constant binging." With a small, angry, and humorless smirk, he adds a ruthless, "Probably can't see the monitors over his mountain of cake."

While they are innocent words to everyone else on the planet, the use of "probably" and "believe" drive Sherlock Holmes up the metaphorical wall. Should he be "alive," he wouldn't have to utter either. He could observe and know, and the rational side of him yearns only for assurance. The smaller part, which seems to have executed a successful coup d'état recently, demands his entire old lifestyle. "221B," it says. "New Scotland Yard," and, "Clients," are stated next. Then, "John, John, John!" is the final battle cry before it repeats. "221B..."

"You broke into my flat and kipped on my sofa for what reason, then?" Molly asks, breaking the internal chant's rhythm for a long moment. Yes, Sherlock concedes, he is being careless, though he doesn't express it and Molly, as usual, dismisses her entirely valid point with a sigh. He does not. It sticks with him and corrodes him, just like everything else does these days. "Well, never mind. What are you out and about for?"

Sherlock wants to express exactly how aggravated he is at John for eluding all of the surveillance he put on him, if only to force the anger from his boiling blood. The brilliant, stupid, lucky man... How is it that he only outsmarts Sherlock when he doesn't mean to? Whenever it is his intention, there's girlish glee on his face, alight in his eyes. It is there whether he smiles or not, like a scent only Sherlock can pick up on. He knows there is no jubilance in John's visage now, even though he can't see him. There is only fear and guilt and depression, and it's Sherlock's fault.

The rust. He can feel it overtaking him, crusting his outer shell and penetrating deeper than he ever thought imaginable. The all-destroying icy, the parasitic second three, the acid ran, the emotion of it all. Dear Lord, the sentiment. It's an ocean of emotion, a glass box he's trapped and suffocating it.

"I need to craft a disguise," he replies instead. At least he can maintain his calm exterior, even if his inner voice shrieks and wails in a glass box of emotion."There are no adequate materials in your house for a man of my height, Molly. This is of the utmost importance."

Molly scoffs. She sees right through his little charade because he wears that piteous expression again; it's the one that overtakes his face whenever he thinks of the friend he's lost, and she can see it so obviously with her discerning eyes. She knows Sherlock, even if he thinks she doesn't. Granted, John knows so much more; he knows everything except that most blatant bit they share, that little invisible thing that makes them so much more than friends. Sherlock can't see it, either, and he sees everything else. Or does he choose to ignore the love they reciprocate?

She is hurt that Sherlock won't tell her the truth, but nevertheless Molly lets Sherlock pretend and wishes him the best of luck. And then, as she returns to the flat he has just left, he is alone again in the dark streets of London.

Sherlock doesn't know where he's going – John could be anywhere in the world. Mycroft could be watching. This is not safe. Stupid idea, stupid thoughts... The worst comes yet. As he closes his eyes and traces London's messy street system with the digits of his imagination, he begins on the long journey to 221B Baker Street. A smile crosses Sherlock's lips, and it feels odd as they crease. His grin has long since been retired, and even as the foreign stretch of skin bothers his nerves slightly, he begins to hum a well-known tune: _The Flight of the Valkyrie_. He hasn't felt this good in so long, and it's familiar as it washes through him. This is what John is to him.

* * *

><p>Well, c'est tout! Thanks for reading, and I promise to not let this go another two weeks without updating ;) Review for a little extra incentive! See y'all next time.<p>

– Phyre


	5. So Long, Farewell

**Title: **Synapses

**Author: **BluePhyre

**Rating: **A _very _high T this time.

**Summary:** The suicide of Sherlock leaves his associate and only friend, Dr. Watson, crippled and depressed. To save him, Holmes assumes the role he's carefully avoided for years. Criminal. Puppeteer. He is Moriarty. He will be, for John. Jocklock, Post-Reichenbach.

**Disclaimer: I do not own any version of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, be it the BBC one or otherwise. These lyrics are not mine, either, but, as always, that of Motion City Soundtrack.**

**Author's Note: **I'm trying very hard to keep up this motif, and I hope it works. I'm breaking the chapter name motif again, because regrettably Sherlock isn't in this chapter much at all, especially not enough to play his violin for us. Sorry :P I would also like to apologize for the state of this chapter - I will probably improve upon it sometime this week, but it's not proof-read, Brit-picked, or, well, refined like I would always rather to. I generally write a chapter at least twice, and you should be able to tell quite easily that I didn't do that this time... Sherlock isn't supposed to be so emotional. Oh well.

I'd like to further give a warning for this chapter; it's violent, unlike previous chapters. I don't feel like it deserves an M, because it's not... disturbing, I guess. It's just graphic. As you can predict, there's character death coming up. I felt that it was necessary to show the "gore," though I don't really think it qualifies as such because it's tamer than that. Mmmphhhh, I'm babbling a bit. Sorry. Just... I'm sorry if you're offended by it or the rating? Let me know if you think I should change it. Really, this fanfic hitting the M rating is a matter of when, not if. It'll be a sexual M, rather than a violent M, but depressed!John isn't up for anything for a while so that should take... a couple more chapters...? I'll only change the rating then, so... Yeah. I'm talking just for the sake of talking, I think. I had so much _more_ to say, but I forgot it. Oh well.

Thank you for the reviews! Much love. Without further ado, the chapter.

* * *

><p>"<em>So long, farewell<br>__May I see you  
><em>When it's over<br>_Goodnight, good luck  
><em>I hope it all works<br>_In your favor.  
><em>So long, old friend<em>_____

_Take my works  
><em>And think them over<br>_So long, farewell  
><em>You're the saddest music<br>_In my world tonight."_____

* * *

><p>Chapter Four: So Long, Farewell<p>

John returns to the flat without any new information. Since leaving New Scotland Yard, he had visited St. Bart's again, only to stare at the bloodstain where Sherlock pretended to be dead. He had looked around for an hour or so from the bus stop bench, just thinking about that day and all of the possibilities and all of the feelings. But it didn't work - nothing made sense to him in that moment. There we no more revelations, no more fruitful moments of inspiration. As he sit down in his chair and spots his cane across the room, exhaustion washes over him and he realizes that he still has no idea how to continue. No more doors have opened to him, and one has closed. Or has it?

"No, John," he orders himself, "don't even think about it. I'm not digging Sherlock up illegally." That would be a very difficult charge to explain to any future employees, should they even bother to look past his previous arrests. With a sigh, he runs a hand through his hair and wonders how he'll ever make an income without Sherlock. The thought depresses him greatly, so instead he grabs the remote and turns on the telly. the news flickers to life on the once-black screen, and John scans the running ticker lightly to check on what's happening in the world. The economy is down, the crime rate is rising, and undeclared wars rock the earth with their chaos. Nothing new. But the story on the screen is much more personal, much more local. He doesn't usually pay attention to those, especially not since the Richard Brook fiasco.

Just as he is about to change the channel, the newsman looks past the television screen and into John's eyes, it feels, and his emotionless words hit at something dangerous and raw within John's withering heart.

"The detective was shot at close range, it seems, and has been rushed to the hospital for immediate care," he tells the Greater London area. "Lestrade is reported to be in intensive care, though no announcement of his status has been made."

The newscaster continues on, but his words are muted by John's loud, barking, "What!?" The entire flat has gone silent to him as a second friend slips away like water between his fingers, away into the darkness of death. The man on the screen advises all detectives to be wary, but that can't be it. It has to be connected to something, something bigger than a grudge. No one handles such matters so impersonally, and Lestrade hasn't been assigned any good cases in weeks - John knows so. It must be related, it must...

"Oh my God," he mutters aloud, as the habit has caught him the silence of 221B. "I'm _deducing_ as a man lies dying. Badly deducing... A _friend_..." And then he falls into silence once more, because heels like Sherlock in a way that is very wrong. A thought strikes him – he'll visit Greg, wherever he is. So, John rushes to the coat rack and grabs a fistful of small bills on the way and rushes out of the flat to hail a taxi.

What he doesn't notice is an extra shadow – one not cast by anything permanently fixed in the house. Sherlock breathes a shuddery sigh from that precise place and emerges into the half-light of his old apartment. John has left the telly on, and now the weather forecast is on, its blues and greens and yellows casting an odd hue over the entire room.

He is close to tears, close to sentiment and demise and those terrible things, because he knows that he has _failed_ them, that he is the cause of all of this. He fed John too much information to early in the game, or perhaps he pushed Molly to do the same. Someone might have seen him wandering around tonight or in the hospital the day before, and the path he planned for John to follow could have been discovered by _anyone_ else... But it was the wrong person. It just happened to be the wrong person...

Sherlock shuts off the television box himself and sits in John's chair, fighting sobs. They come anyway, because his brilliant mint knows all. Once on shot It fired, it will trigger the rest; it will light up Sherlock's world. Will John die first, or will it be Mrs. Hudson? He supposes the latter – Moriarty would have planned for this, planned to let his heart smolder before it combusts. John will die last, just to shatter him. And yet, there's nothing that he can do. If he emerges into society, he will send out the signal to shoot. If he warns John of the danger now, he will only seal his fate.

He must sit here and he must watch. _This_ is Moriarty's plan. He's won. In death, he has proven his superiority. Even in death... Sherlock crosses the floor to the window and stares out. It's begun – the true destruction of his world.

* * *

><p>The cab pulls up to St. Bartholomew's Hospital in record time and John pushes himself out before the car has entirely stopped. They hadn't said on the news where Lestrade had been taken for immediate care, but it has to be Bart's. It all comes back to Bart's.<p>

John's notion is right – as he approaches the front desk and asks for Gregory Lestrade's room, the receptionist directs him with a point of her fingers and a room number. The good doctor counts the rooms as he passes and rushes through the corresponding door frame. The graying detective is supine and unconscious, and beside his bed, oddly enough, stands Mycroft. As usual, he leans on his umbrella, though the burden it bears now seems heavier in both actual and emotional weight. The elder Holmes' once-pristine suit is painted in front with blood. Their eyes met for a fleeting moment, and John breaks the gaze angrily to pull up a chair beside the bed. He thinks that he is making a statement, with his movements and his fury, but he is not. In fact, it is familiar to Mycroft; it is all quite akin to Sherlock.

"How have you been?" he asks softly, his gaze back on Lestrade. He is thinking, and in the moment his voice isn't as detached. It's how he would have liked to address Sherlock, John reckons, and he stares up at the great murdering giant. Funny how there truly is blood on his hands now. How was he involved in Lestrade's injury? Did he pull the trigger himself, or did he just _inform_ his assailant of his entire life history?

"Since the death of my best mate?" John answers with a second question, grasping his chair's arm tightly. Really, he's being kind. It's less cruel than anything else he could have said. "Just peachy. It's even more of a cakewalk than I expected it to be"

"Oh come now, John," Mycroft chides gently. His phone rings in his breast pocket, but when he reaches for it, it's only to silence it. Funny how a man can kill his own brother but still find the decency to avoid taking a call in a hospital.

That's what Mycroft is. Funny.

"No!" John protests, and it feels strange as he yells at the British government. "Now what part do you have in this?" The beeping from Lestrade's heart monitor registers in the front of his mind for the first time as more than white noise. He should have been listening to it avidly – he can't let someone else slip away, not one more friend. Like Sherlock, John has found that he has very few.

Mycroft sees the distress on John's face and decides to tell the truth. "I merely had Anthea pick him up from his office and bring him to the warehouse to discuss your intentions."

"Intentions?" John echoes, sneering. He has no intentions, just a desire to find Sherlock alive. A wonderful, burning desire and hope to go with it. He has no _intention_ of telling Mycroft any of that, though. He'll only mess it up again, so he must be kept in the dark. Easier thought than done, but it is the only way.

"I know the truth," Mycroft states plainly, but he isn't one to dwell on mistrust that he very well deserves and moves on in his story. "Lestrade and I had finished our little chat when he was shot. I decided his assassin was to be terminated immediately... For the welfare of Great Britain."

As the Holmes brother looks down his great nose and leans on his long umbrella more fully, John decides that he doesn't want to know the details of that termination and he _certainly_ doesn't plan on getting too close to Mycroft's umbrella ever again. Is it a hidden gun of some sort, or a sword? The man in question seems to follow his gaze and his thoughts, and chuckles a little. Only a little.

"Just an ordinary umbrella, John," he informs him. "I keep my weapons closer." Mycroft pats his breast pocket once more, and the good doctor shifts awkwardly and looks away. One nod acknowledges him, and they settle into a second silence.

"Was it one of the Baker Street assassins?" John asks eventually, remembering the four of them, their files spread out in front of him. He had watches two of them die for whatever Moriarty has planted in 211B, but that had been back when Sherlock was alive – definitively alive, at least. "I haven't seen any moving trucks. What are they still doing in London, then?"

Mycroft follows the path John's mind has taken and scoffs. "No," he replies, and a smile is etched into his lips. "Assassins tend not to use moving trucks." Watson can't say he expected any more of Mycroft, but his amusement is annoying. They both ponder the occupancy of Baker Street. The elder Holmes is more mysterious as he thinks, and the good doctor finds himself watching him intently. He is more like Sherlock than either of them would care to admit, but instilled with morsels of common sense and social prowess. As for loyalty, Sherlock has a keener sense. Perhaps it is why he had so few friends to leave behind.

"They have to be here still because of Moriarty," John mutters, turning his attention to his somewhat stubby fingers as they knit together, then apart again. He knows that just as his fingers are calloused, Lestrade's are stained yellow. And Mycroft... Just like the rest of him, they must be soft. Sherlock would have a good laugh at that. "Moriarty and Sherlock... This is a fight between dead men."

"Precisely," Mycroft agrees. Neither of them speak further – they both question John's words. How is this game played? What are the objectives, as death is out-ruled, and what is the prize, as survival is no longer an option? The pieces pushed around the board are only half aware of their importance, their place in the game. The assassins are Moriarty's weapons quite obviously, but who does Sherlock manipulate from beyond the grave? Perhaps John is a pawn; Lestrade could be another, or he might only be collateral damage...

"Where is Anthea?" John asks after an eon of thinking. He's grown sick of the endless beeping, the smell of the hospital creeping into his lungs and waging war on the rest of his senses, so he breaks the silence. Mycroft's eyes narrow in reply and catch on the good doctor's form, though he does not tilt his head. For a moment, the silence between then stretches on. And then, the elder Holmes grasps the front of his blazer between each his hands and tugs curtly. The movement is very much Sherlock, and John thinks that he is merely being snobbish and secretive.

"Oh, please, can we not do this?" he adds, scowling. Mycroft is very much like Sherlock, then, in his insistence on being mysterious with his cheekbones and – oh God. It all fits together in his mind like the pieces of a horrific puzzle and John feels as if he will retch. "That's _her_ blood," he gasps in astonishment, his voice weak with disbelief. "No, she can't be..." But the words don't make sense anymore in his mind, and he stops entirely.

This is stupid and weak of him; he is a soldier and he has seen his friends in his own regiment die. He has been covered in the blood of his comrades and watched them fade from existence because _he_ wasn't skilled enough or determined enough to save them. He held up fine then, without any nausea or shock until the moment passed, and yet this woman who cared too little to remember his name, who he only knew by a cryptonym, was enough to move him to illness. He hadn't even it seen it happen, hadn't even seen her die...

Mycroft seems less effected, though his eyes shine with... What is that, regret? John can't tell. "I ordered her to kill the assassin," he says, watching his umbrella pensively. "He put a bullet through her brain before she even saw him, but I managed to finish the job. Control must not know the details – I am too valuable to defend myself." His hand tenses for a moment, but the hanging fist relaxes immediately. "She was more than competent, Anthea. I didn't expect her to die."

Remorse tints Mycroft's words ever so slightly, and finally he leaves Lestrade's bedside to sit in one of the chairs against the opposing wall. He seems lost without his assistant, and John wonders how he ever survived without her. This moment must be difficult; he has faced the death of his little brother, partially because of his own folly, and now the assistant and protector that never left his side has died, also because of his choices. Pity resonates in the place where John's heart used to be, but he turns back to Lestrade and forces it all on his motionless form.

Was the shooting _his_ fault? Had he put Lestrade in danger with his knowledge? There certainly isn't much of it – not as much as he'd like there to be. As he pats the detective's hand, John wishes his suspicions to be false. His heart heavy and his stomach churning uncomfortably, the good doctor pulls himself to his feet and mutters a small, "Get better," to Lestrade. Mycroft doesn't more more than to follow John out with his eyes as he leaves with no parting words.

"No cane?" is Mycroft's retaliation, what he calls gently after John. "How peculiar. I thought the limp stemmed from a lack of adrenaline."

John frowns and tenses his hand where the soft grip of his walking stick should be. He has made it into the hall, out of sight, but he still grunts, "It is," loud enough for the elder Holmes to hear before closing the door a bit too loudly. It slams on his heels, and all of his anger dissipates into silent laughter. It's not funny, just ironic. Sherlock's always told Mycroft to not let the door hit him and the way out and now John... John is _that_ asshole.

He must make a decision now. Will he retire his hopes of finding Sherlock alive, if just to prevent someone else from being gunned down? Who would be next? Molly, possibly. Mycroft is much too valuable to be shot – he's said so himself. John hasn't explained his theories to anyone else, and perhaps this is the way he must continue.

"Keep it a secret, John" he instructs himself. His feet bring him across the floor and to the elevator, and as the doors close, he is alone. This is exactly how he must be on this journey: Alone.

* * *

><p>Mycroft leaves Gregory Lestrade only when a doctor comes in to inform him that there will be no dying today. The elder Holmes brother wishes to inform him otherwise, but Anthea is more than just a fun fact to throw around when he feels like being contradictory, and no one is meant to know of her killer. He has stayed this long just to make sure her death wasn't in vain, and he'll be back to honor her. But for now, he must leave. There is much left to be done, and Gregory Lestrade will be fine. For now.<p>

"Diogenes Club, Mr. Holmes?" his faithful driver asks as Mycroft sits in the back of the town car and they pull away from the curb. It is in the back of his mind, the wish to tell him otherwise, but no other location presents itself in his thoughts and he must review tapes immediately. Surveillance will provide answers; it must. As a, "Yes, if you please," escapes his lips, he pulls his mobile from his breast pocket and dials. He will have his best lip-reader following John within moments.

Meanwhile, he must begin to hunt down Moriarty's men. The assassin that had been waiting for Lestrade – the same one who succeeded in killing Anthea – was known to have been employed by the infamous consulting criminal, but why? Why act now? Sherlock's rumored survival would inspire anger in any of Moriarty's followers, but a smart man – a good henchman – would use the detective inspector to follow the trail, to smoke the enemy out. Or, if he lacked the patience, he would have at least shot Watson or Mycroft instead. Moriarty never chose incompetent men; he was no Republic Serial villain, after all. But the point? What in the name of the Queen is the point of it all?

As much as Mycroft wishes for his brother's survival, he fears what it might mean. A day so corrupt might wield two secret lives – Moriarty could have faked his own death just as well. And the press, the sense of national security... The elder Holmes shudders at the thought, though as he sees the Diogenes Club roll into the frame of the car windows he opens the door and emerges umbrella first. It is silent as he walks past the first sitting room and up the stairs, just as protocol demands. Mycroft has his own quarters there, so there are small little places to watch all of London scattered about the room. He chooses his laptop – a much more secure, government-issued model than his brother's, which he admits to make it much less functional – and places it on his desk. Next he adds earbuds to either of his ears and the plug to its respective port on the side of the computer. They make him look much more like a teenybopper than a high-ranking government official, but in an establishment so silent he can't even turn the laptop on without fearing the next world war, so he wears them without shame.

His tongue runs over his newly coronated tooth as he waits for the machine to boot up, and his eyes search the space for anything minutely different. Mycroft's brain is nowhere near the supreme functionality of Sherlock's – perhaps because he _does_ know that the Prime Minister is Harriet Jones – but he is still a Holmes boy and thusly in the near-superhuman stratosphere. There is absolutely nothing different in the room since his last stay here – only a light disruption of the carpeting that meets the pattern of his path in perfectly. Mycroft tenses his jaw and relaxes it only when his teeth ache, and the welcome screen loads.

Mycroft Holmes will happily say that he seldom deals with emotions, though they are by no means a sign of weakness. It is only the actions that often follow them that he defines as foolish, and he is out of practice in the entire business of _reacting_. Still, the level of depression consuming his sensibility is foreign to the elder Holmes. He thinks of Anthea, that precise moment she died. His mind is suddenly a curse, a senseless camera set to constantly record every bit of knowledge it can seek out, to store it away in neat little files hosted by endless cabinets in a hall that stretches on forever. Mycroft can remember every second, every fraction of a second, and the scene he replays this time insists to be in slow motion, to provide every painstaking detail to his weeping intellect.

The bullet is in Mycroft's mind, but heading towards Anthea's head. Her gun is poised in the wrong direction as the stands possessively in front of her charge – she has heard his orders to kill, but not yet detected the sniper. She never will. The Holmes brother knows she is about to be killed, both in his mind and his memory. He begins to say her name, though he knows the projectile will extinguish her life before he can warn her. Their eyes meet for a moment, and she is confused. Still, a smile lurks on her lips and in her eyes. There is no fear, and he takes the smallest amount of consolation in this. And then, the bullet collides with her occiput and wins, almost perfectly centered and deadly as it passes once through her skull effortlessly. Mycroft sees the shock in her face before she can feel it herself. Pain registers for a moment as well, a short, blazing fraction of a second, and he sees it forever. And then, the front of her skull shatters as well and her blood and cerebrospinal fluids spray into the air. He can see the pieces of bone as they propel through the air like shrapnel, and Mycroft's mouth drops open as she jolts forward from the impact. He is coated from the neck down in her warm, sticky mess and she slumps against him, too close to fall. Mycroft's arms wrap around her and support her, even though bits of her skull and the bullet itself have lodged shallowly within him. What he does in retaliation is either heroic or horrible – Anthea falls to the floor as he grabs her gun from her hand and raises it to shoot her murderer through the eye. The man collapses in a similar spray of blood and vitreous humor and cerebrospinal fluid, and Mycroft smiles.

Before the police can respond to a report of gunfire, Mycroft has tidied up the mess. He carefully cleans up Anthea's body – the blood and the bits of brain and skull and hair, too – and hides it behind a dumpster for the moment. It proves to be more difficult to pick the bullet and the bone debris from his chest, but he still seems more presentable than anyone else would be in the situation when the police arrive. He staves them off with a flash of his credentials, and when he is left alone Mycroft calls his own people to pick of the bodies of Anthea and Moriarty's man and set the entire affair straight. He has even less faith in the local force than be started the day with, but there are so many reasons that they cannot know the truth. Anthea Omilson doesn't exist – she never did beyond a scalpel-made face and a birth certificate printed twenty ears after the character's birthdate. Mycroft Holmes can't kill – he can't be on the radar at all. The public cannot know the ease of assassin infiltration; the London streets filled with them. And the government... The government's true actions must be veiled. It is for the greater good, after all: the survival of the sensible public.

As the laptop finishes booting up, Mycroft's mind returns to the present and immediately signs in to both the CCTV and his own personal surveillance cameras, most of them in 221B. He settles on two separate rooms and sits back to watch comfortably from his desk chair. As Lestrade sleeps in his bed, John sits in a chair half a city away staring at the empty seat where Sherlock should sit. The room is dark around the good doctor – even in night vision mode, Mycroft's camera can't detect much – and looks to be quite silent as well. John is thinking too hard – a look that doesn't suit him half as well as it did Sherlock. Nothing exciting seems to be happening, and Mycroft feels a bit robbed of his money. But no – he must be patient. He'll bill the lip-reader to the government; there has to be a way to excuse this.

Mycroft continues to watch as the seconds turn to minutes, the minutes turn to hours, and the hours turn to pound signs in the shine of his man's eyes. He ponders the severity of Sherlock and John's relationship – has he missed something large and important? As the good doctor sits and thinks and occasionally sleeps, Mycroft can see through the distance that separates them and right past his calm exterior. He can sense the anxiety, the torment, the _pain_ within Dr. Watson only possibly because of his talents. The elder Holmes brother had developed a keen eye for reading others, having to look through his younger brother's impenetrable shell. It was much akin to x-ray vision, revealing all and sparing nothing for the sake of decency, but at the same time leaving it all untouched. At first, it had been finely tuned to Sherlock, his abilities, but the dial broke and the vision began to apply to _anyone_ and _everyone. _It was a burden on Mycroft, who felt so little himself and acted on even less. But perhaps – perhaps Sherlock had played the cruelest trick of all on his caring brother. Perhaps before his death he had found a way to hide things, little things, away in an invisible box and had taught John to do the same. Perhaps together they had hidden something much larger than either of them in masked emotions and shadows and – by God, Mycroft can see it now, almost as plain as day. They were in love. Dear Lord, he had joked about it once or twice, but he never thought that... The elder Holmes sighs, because now, in honor of Sherlock, Mycroft must keep John alive. Thrilled, perhaps even terrified, but alive. Such a delicate, dangerous balance...

Suddenly, his phone rings and he jumps to retrieve it, to answer it, to do anything simply to _shut it up_. How could he have been so careless, not to have put it on vibrate the moment he decided to return to the Diogenes Club? When he succeeds and the receiver meets his ear, the hushed, raspy voice of his man trailing John assaults his mechanoreceptors. He has grown accustom to only static in the maddening silence.

"He hasn't said anything since I arrived, sir," he reports, and Mycroft acknowledges the truth with an, "I know," and a short apology for his ill-spent time. "But," the spy adds, "there is someone else in the flat. Whoever it is, they seem dangerous. Do you have someone else on the job?"

He doesn't even dignify the man on the other end wit a response, but as he ends the call Mycroft can only assume that the sense of urgency was conveyed. He calls John – he might be the only one left in existence that still uses speed dial, and the good doctor is number three – and hisses as it takes four separate rings for him to find and answer his phone. Mycroft closes the window monitoring Lestrade as he waits and tabs quickly through the different views of 221B that his cameras capture. John fumbles with his phone in the top right of the laptop screen, and at least Mycroft can take some solace in the sight of him.

"What the Hell do you want?" John growls, and Mycroft can place it to his lips in the video feed and in the message his man sends him with the dialogue. Still, his eyes flicker from screen to screen, looking for any threat. A silhouette of a man moves almost imperceptibly in John's bedroom,but Mycroft knows that it is cast by nothing fixed in the room. The situation is _real_. That's all the confirmation that he needs.

"Get out of there," Mycroft orders. His voice is calm, but the John on the screen tenses visibly and he senses the urgency of the moment. "Get out of the building _now_. Take nothing and be silent. _Get out_."

The ex-soldier follows the orders with spectacular precision and punctuality with the exception of gabbing his pistol on the way out. Really, he wouldn't have it any other way. There is no limp in his step now; he feels the danger repairing his psychosomatic wound, knitting together the mentally broken parts of his untouched leg. Mycroft instructs him further to find the spy in the building across the street and stay with him until further notice. He trusts that John will be safe, especially with his brilliant sense of gun control, but it's best to take precautions and Mycroft wants his money's worth from this lip-reader of his. The shadow-shrouded intruder does not move from his spot, as if he knows precisely of each camera's location and is trying quite hard to stay out of their full attention, and Mycroft frowns.

"Go to 221B Baker Street," he instructs his driver next on his mobile. "Pick up John Watson from the care of Ronald Adams from the apartment complex across the road and take him to wherever he wishes to stay overnight. If he chooses a hotel, pay for it in cash. I will refund you when you return." Another fee he will pass along to the state. A fourth and final call reaches Adams, and it has come full-circle as he tells the man to seek out and exterminate the intruder once John was been delivered. He very much hopes that this man deserves death, because as the spy hangs up, he knows there will be no recalling the order. It is a rash decision to make, especially from a man of the government, but Mycroft finds himself unwilling to risk what little he still had of his baby brother.

Mycroft sighs and reclines in his chair at Diogenes Club, miles away from it all. He watches as everything goes according to plan – as John finds Adams, as he is picked up by his personal chauffeur, as the lip-reader makes his way into the flat. He explores it with careful prods of his silenced gun and the very American "Shoot now, ask later," mentality. Mycroft watches his pawns run about in his name and feels very much like a puppet master, like a god. He doesn't relish in the idea – in fact, he loathes it now. Mycroft Holmes is one of the most influential – most _indispensable_, a more crucial status – men in all of the United Kingdom, and yet his regal importance wasn't enough to save Sherlock. For all the power and all the success he had won, he is naught if he cannot use it to save the dwindling number of loved ones he still has. The most he can do now is to protect John – and pray. He will pray for his younger brother's stolen life.

The day falls to pieces for a second time as the shadow escapes and the third murder of the day is left incomplete. Mycroft can't say that he is disappointed; it is more than consoling, the thought that he lacks some power still. Moriarty's men will be smoked out of their holes with time. He will murder each and every one of them, exact his final revenge, salvage the pieces of his and Sherlock's lives, and piece them together the best he can. This is the final problem – the problem of Moriarty and Sherlock and _death_.

Today, though, Mycroft can relax. There will be no more dying today.

* * *

><p>I <em>did <em>say that there wasn't much Sherlock. Really, none at all besides general weepiness. To make up for it, Mycroft time! Lol. I promise that there will be a better supply of Sherlock next chapter around. Reviews are greatly appreciated! Until next chapter, then.

– Phyre


	6. Pulp Fiction

**Title: **Synapses

**Author: **BluePhyre

**Rating: **A _very _high T this time.

**Summary:** The suicide of Sherlock leaves his associate and only friend, Dr. Watson, crippled and depressed. To save him, Holmes assumes the role he's carefully avoided for years. Criminal. Puppeteer. He is Moriarty. He will be, for John. Jocklock, Post-Reichenbach.

**Disclaimer: I do not own any version of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, be it BBC or otherwise. These lyrics are not mine; they belong to Motion City Soundtrack.**

**Author's Note: **Hey, so how 'bout that hiatus? Sorry–I really am. Dear Lord. The worst thing is that I wrote this originally alongside the previous chapter; they were done at the same time. However, I wanted to edit through it. That still hasn't happened, but I started to re-read my old work and decided to revitalize this piece. I'm also excited about the usage of graphics, though I suppose that's not new news to anyone. I spent all day making the cover photo for _Synapses_ instead of studying for a math midterm.

Oh, yeah. I'm a college student now. I'm going to say that that's a brilliant excuse to ignore my fanfiction for a while. However, I also ignored this for the majority of my summer holiday. So maybe not.

I've entirely abandoned my hope for weekly updates, clearly. I'm working on the next chapter now, though! I have exactly one paragraph. Somewhere, I must have my old notes. I need them. I'll find them over Thanksgiving break (which starts on Tuesday, I'm excited!) and get back to work as consistently as I can. However, I'm not exactly performing at my best right now, so I might have to abandon Synapses for a little while more. Not like anyone cares, but yeah. Also, I have time now because I'm dying of the Black Plague or tuberculosis or something, and I need a distraction from my emotional instability. So fanfiction it is.

Ugh. Ramble ramble. Maybe if I talk about myself enough this chapter will look like it's a decent length. Yeah, under 4000 words. It needs help. I'M DOING BADLY IN ENGLISH 101. I'M WOEFULLY INADEQUATE, AND ALSO I REALIZE THAT I HAVE A HIGHLY ADDICTIVE PERSONALITY AND THAT I'M DEPLORABLY UNLOVABLE. There. Now you know me. Sorry. Read.

_Oh, god_. Words I now hate...

* * *

><p><em>'It's like a bad dream<em>

_Something from the back of a magazine_

_Black and white and_

_Cheaply put together_

_Like a slasher film._

_I'm torn in opposite directs_

_The plot sucks, but the killings are gorgeous._

_And like a nightmare_

_Covering the tracks that had brought you here_

_Paranoid and frozen in the heathers_

_Like a slasher film._

_I'm torn in opposite directions_

_The plot sucks, but these killings are gorgeous_

_Damn, these killings are gorgeous."_

* * *

><p>Chapter Five: Pulp Fiction<p>

Sherlock is curled up in a half-shadowed corner for John's room at 221B as he waits for something – anything – to change. He hadn't been expecting the good doctor's return so early, or even at all; he was too lost in his own maddening thoughts. It was only luck that had carried him to John's room, the nook of the flat he is certain will be left unexplored by either of the two surviving key-holders. It had been just in time, too, his ascent, as John re-entered the flat a flustered, serious, silent mess only seconds after Sherlock had ducked into this shadow and its secrecy. He sits now, thinking about John and Lestrade and the assailant of the latter. It's the same battle he's been having inside since he saw the newscast – a dance of emotion and knowledge, of fear and fortitude – but there have yet to be any results. The strands of knowledge continue on and tangle, but they aren't rooted to anything in his mind palace. Even as he explores them, picks them apart bit by bit and salvages the good parts for himself, his attention is divided three ways and he feels more and more frustrated and less and less omniscient. His mind hurts because of its previous disuse, the emptiness it developed in two weeks of absolute nothingness, and it's all Sherlock can do to not groan and hold his head and cry. He feels so broken – broken to a point of uselessness by boredom and sentiment. He is so shaken, too, by this new, raw side of himself that he even notices when John hurries out the door. In fact, he jumps at the sound.

"Where are you going?" he asks, but the door has already closed and there is no reply in the furthest depths of his mind. Wherever John is, it's probably a good bit less safe than the flat. He shouldn't be out, he should be hiding at home. Their home. These ideas are rational but they are also based in emotion, so he smothers them with a mind-pillow and tells himself in a much more direct tone that this is his time to escape. An exit out the front door of 221B would be to obvious, if only because John is still too close, but he doesn't much fancy going out the window yet, either. In his experience, the good doctor never left the flat without purpose, whether it be work, shopping, or to avoid half a row, and Sherlock assures himself that he has time. It's this time now that he might not be able to use again; he can explore the facts a little more, here, where he thinks best. What is he missing? What has evaded his attentions? There must be something, some small piece that completes the picture...

"Oh, how dull puzzle boards are," he hisses to himself. Still, he hunches a little more forward in his corner – incidentally, into a pile of Watson's dirty clothes – and lets his mind play with the facts and those gaping holes within them. He will discern it.

Much too soon – Sherlock checks the analogue clock on John's bedside table, just to make sure he hasn't lost track of time – the door opens. He realizes with an internal groan that John did not lock it on his way out, that he must have forgotten. This is not the good doctor now – the door was opened as quietly as possible, and the footsteps are soft and skilled in the same echoed carefulness. The gait is not John's, either. Steps further apart but not awkwardly so – the intruder is taller, probably not as tall as Sherlock, with no bias between feet. Even when he is well, John's legs are unevenly matched in strength from the additional muscle exertion due to the limp he sometimes exhibits. It is almost imperceptible, but Sherlock knows everything about John whilst understanding very little of it, and this is one of the things that he truly grasps. This man – definitely a man – is not John, but he may very well be a threat to them both.

Footsteps on the stairs up to John's room, where Sherlock is hiding, tell him that he only has moments until he is discovered. In desperation, he shrinks back to his corner and sinks down into a crouching position, hands rigid on either side of him as he drowns in his mind palace. These footsteps – what do they mean? They are skilled; he is a trained man. Trained in what? He is either a thief, a spy, or an assassin. The soft brush of metal against metal is a gun jostling about – a momentary mistake that prepares Sherlock for the worst. Thieves explore with greedy hands, not pointed guns. Not a thief – that leaves spy and assassin. Neither bode well for the detective, but _assassin_ is a grimmer thought. Who would want to assassinate Dr. John Watson? Who besides one of Moriarty's men?

Well, a list could be formulated, though Sherlock decides that assumptions are understandable for the moment and pushes his thoughts along to the problem-solving center of his mind palace.

Whichever profession the man belongs to, Sherlock has come to the morbid conclusion that only _one_ of them can emerge from this fight victorious. Perhaps even alive. He breaks free of his mind palace and into the real world with one objective in mind to accomplish before the intruder discovers him; he must find a weapon. The most likely place is the drawer of the bedside table – cliché, he knows, but it's within reach from nearly every usable bit of the room and he doesn't reckon John _cares_ whether his enemies anticipate the bullet coming towards them, as long as it hits them – and he all but dives for it. Behind a copy of the Holy Bible – oh God, _really?_ Dr. John H. Watson, a Christian?_–_ Sherlock finds a long, sharp knife. It's almost comical to him, for blades aren't oft within the militaristic terms that John likes to operate in, but he doesn't laugh. He only shrinks into his corner once more and waits.

The last seconds tick by like hours to Sherlock as he runs the knife between his fingers and plots his plan of attack. When the intruder finally inches into the room, gun held an arm's length before him, prodding everything even remotely threatening, the consulting detective decides from the lack of gun superiority that he is a spy caught unready to attack – certainly not an assassin. He is almost nervous in appearance and was most-certainly ordered into unsuspected action by a superior. The spy was simply collecting information. Well, now he _must _die. How long has he been about, and how much does he know? It doesn't matter; he will die for it.

The decision is made now, and in the moment that he is not spotted, Sherlock leaps from the shadows and slams his fist into the back of the spy's occiput. As he reels forward from momentum, a knee is lodged into his stomach and between his ribs and he stumbles back over Sherlock's foot, only to be slugged in the face and trip entirely over his attacker. The spy lands on his back, but Sherlock knows that, while the breath is knocked out of him and he is discombobulated, he is not finished. When he pulls his gun to his front, it doesn't surprise either of them. Before he can pull the trigger, the weapon is punted out of his hand and lands across the room. The spy stumbles to his feet as best he can and swings one, two, three punches that never land. Sherlock grabs his arm as the last attack whizzes by him and swings it around his neck. When the elbow rests on the back of his neck, wrist out, he pulls it down and relinquishes his grip only when met with a satisfied _snap_. The spy shouts in pain and stumbles back, but he isn't felled until Sherlock jams his open palm up against the base of nose and shatters it. As he hits the ground for a second time, they both seem done with the endeavor and the spy lays there, panting, not trying to fight any further. Sherlock kneels beside him and watches him. He smooths the knife over the intruders neck gently, not breaking the skin. It is a warning, and he watches the tremor of fear run through the body beneath him.

"Please," the man begs earnestly, "don't kill me. I have a family! I have children!" As Sherlock's eyes flit over him, they are cold. He thinks about this man below him. He isn't lying. There is something beyond the tears – caused by his broken nose – and the brokenness of his voice – he can't breathe, after all – that speaks of his true sincerity. The detective can recognize it; sometimes, it lurks within Mycroft or John's expressions, beneath their words and their actions, and only then does he know that he can trust his brother. He trusts what this man is telling him, even enough to spare his life.

He says nothing, but his body speaks for him as he stands and takes a step back. The spy smiles and laughs – most-likely in relief, though Sherlock has never understood this phenomena – and they both stay there for a moment in the silence. He doesn't expect the intruder to be able to get up and walk it off, but he doesn't very much want to help him out, either. Perhaps he'll leave him here for John or Mrs. Hudson to find. God knows how long _that_ will take. Even Sherlock can't deduce it.

The consulting detective turns to leave – he has decided on a window escape, despite his prior reservations – when a hand latches out and hooks onto his pants. Sherlock jumps visibly and realizes that he is still holding the knife, but it is only the man whose life he spared, smiling up at him through the pain and the self-contradiction he's experiencing. "I owe you," he rasps out, and in that moment it's Moriarty lying there, Moriarty holding onto his trousers, Moriarty's smile and Moriarty's plots and the entire _world_ is back to that moment. But it is no longer a game – it is a nuisance and a threat.

Sherlock is stabbing the man before he can control himself, before he can reason with that scared child inside of him. It's only a phrase, a common phrase, and it's set him off. Tears well in his eyes and he drops the knife. The man below him is dying, but not yet dead. In his eyes, it sits there; he's never seen so much pain before in his life. But this man – he's said those words just as Moriarty had, and no one deserves death more than Moriarty. Why hadn't he been able to kill the man himself? Why had he shot himself? Why had he committed suicide? – and yet Sherlock didn't understand.

"Who do you work for!?" he demands of the spy. The man opens his mouth, but he coughs up blood instead of words and it's _everywhere_, on Sherlock included. "Tell me!" he shouts over and over, shaking and crying and – Dear God, what this what he was reduced to?

"I am loyal only to my Queen and country," the intruder spits. Sherlock's face is splattered with blood now, and he grabs the knife in his fist and waves it in front of the man's eyes like a pendant; it's not a reward, it's a threat. When he demands a name, he gets it. But it's not what he wants. "Mycroft Holmes..."

And then, he is frozen forever, eyes wide, stained with blood and Sherlock's regret. Dead. This nameless man with a family, with children, has been removed forever from the world of the living because of the _gratitude_ he expressed for Sherlock's mercy. He was destroyed by hands that were untainted, that solved murders and gave peace to others. Sherlock flexes his fingers, furling them and releasing them and feeling the blood coating them stick. It is nothing _new_, but the knowledge is. He has killed an innocent man. This is his first murder all over again – but now he is on the other side. Is it terrible if his thoughts only turn to what John will think of him?

Once his breath and his vision has returned to normal, Sherlock steals what he can of the man's clothing. It betters his disguise only slightly, because everything is too short and too wide. But he doesn't look like himself – and that's the point, isn't it? He doesn't feel like himself, either, and it's at the worst it has been since Sherlock Holmes "died". He retrieves the gun – at least he has a proper weapon – and rids the crime scene of any traces he could have left behind. And then, only then, does he emerge from the room and down the stairs. Mrs. Hudson stands there, and by the looks of it she knows too much. His hat is pulled down over his face, though, and his hair is hidden entirely, so she doesn't seem to know who _he_ is. Well... He can at least place the blame elsewhere, then.

"Moriarty sends his compliments," he says gruffly, raising his voice to a higher pitch than what Mrs. Hudson must be familiar with. Her face blanches perfectly white, but at least she doesn't see through him to the truth. He doesn't feel too terrible when her footsteps climb the stairs and she shrieks, then, because he has saved _her_ as well.

* * *

><p>Molly jolts awake when a loud sound harasses her from her telly's speakers. With a yawn, she runs a hand through her hair and checks for the time. A quarter past eleven; Sherlock has been out for hours. It worries her, but not too much. He is too smart to be caught, even in such an emotional state. Still, she reckons that the water in the kettle has gone cold. A quick hand to her mug on the coffee table proves her theory to be fact, and she sighs. Molly had been hoping to welcome him in with a hot drink.<p>

As she turns the television off and the lights on, traffic ebbs on outside her window. Lightly, Molly wonders why anyone is out on such a sleepy night. With a yawn, she smooths out the wrinkles in her skirt and wanders into the kitchenette with a mission to reheat the kettle. She makes it no further than the low archway when there are two curt knocks on her door, and she nearly jumps out of her skin. It occurs to Molly next that Sherlock simply doesn't knock, and on that note she grabs her small umbrella for defense before she opens the door, the chain still on. There's no need to fear, but every reason to worry; Molly can see from the small crack she's opened the door that her visitor is John.

"Hello," she says quietly when she has closed the door, taken the chain off, and opened it fully for the good doctor. "It's late. What are you doing out?" Also, she would like to know how he found her flat, but that's a lesser matter for a different day.

The man in the doorframe offers a smile, but it no less grim than the last Molly has seen on him. "It's a long story," is his precursory explanation, though afterwards he adds, "I need a place to stay the night. If I could just kip on your couch..."

"Absolutely not!" is Molly's first reply, and John's eyebrows raise substantially. Rather taken aback, he opens his mouth again, perhaps to argue, but she stops him. "I don't think it's possible tonight... I could give you money for a hotel...? I'm sorry..."

It's John's turn to deny Molly; accepting more money from her is simply too much. He does glance beyond her, though, into the absurdly neat flat she suddenly keeps. And then, he spots the only things out of place; two mugs sitting on the coffee table. One, she has laid out for herself. The other waits hopefully for Sherlock. A look on his face tells her immediately that he has deduced poorly – and kindly.

"Oh, I'm sorry," John says immediately. "I didn't mean to interrupt anything. Didn't know you had company..."

Molly blushes and immediately turns to survey the room, wondering what's given her away. Clearly, he did not make the connection between her "company" and Sherlock, though whatever turns him away... She recalls that his violin _does_ sit somewhere in the living room, though it's out of sight. Finally, when she spots the mugs, she smiles earnestly.

"Yeah, don't worry about it," Molly says. If only she had company... That would mean at least one of them was getting over Sherlock. "I feel bad, though... What if you stay with my friend for the night?"

It's clear that John is tempted to deny her offer, though the way his teeth overtake his bottom lip assures Molly that his choice is tough. Either way, she assumes she will still be doing him a favor. God knows if he has money for a hotel, should he choose to deny her offer...

A mumbled, "Fine," interrupts Molly as she thinks, and for a moment she looks over John to wonder what he is agreeing to. Then, she remembers. With a small smile, she pulls out her phone from her back pocket. Immediately, she sees a horde of texts from Sherlock. With a squeak, she ignores them before John can see – as if he's reading over her shoulder, which he most-certainly is not – and scrolls through her contacts. "Alright... I'll give you her address and let her know you're coming over." After a moment, Molly looks up to John and bites her lip, mimicking his expression. "Just... stay there."

She finds a pad and pen inside the flat and scribbles out what she's looked up on her phone. Another text message from Sherlock is received at the same time, but Molly just rolls her eyes. He can do whatever he needs to on his own. God knows what her help has gotten him into... Across the room, waiting at the door, John begins to crack his knuckles. She looks over at him, but he is pointedly examining her ceiling. He has no cane.

"Here," she murmurs, crossing the room and handing the slip of paper to him. "Middle of Southwark, pretty easy to find. Her roommate recently moved out, so there's more than enough room for you for the night. I think she still has a futon."

John nods slowly, grasping the paper between both of his hands. "She...?" Molly frowns and bids him goodnight; he's been here for too long, and Sherlock's texts are growing closer and closer together. She can only assume he's coming back, and if the good doctor is here when he returns...

Molly walks to the window and watches the street. John emerges from the main entrance and crosses quickly; a sleek, black town car is waiting for him. As they drive off, she cannot spot Sherlock in either direction, though whatever wounds John may have from her snub are still worth the caution. As she stares down at the phone again, she choosing from a list of contacts and holds the device up to her ear. After a couple of rings, her friend picks up.

"Hey, Mary, I have a _huge_ favor to ask of you..."

* * *

><p>Again, sorry about the length (or lack thereof.) Hopefully, it wasn't too bad. Total cliffhanger! I'll let you know who I imagine Mary to be when I find an adequate model. I didn't mind Mary in Game of Shadows, but I don't think she's really applicable. I need someone who matches the personality I'm giving her–listen to "Antonia" by Motion City Soundtrack. Also, I meant to say this last chapter, but think about Anthea for a while. I'm not sure I can even fit her past into this story, as it's not really relevant, but if I end up surpassing it, it'll probably end up in the epilogue. Or I'll just tell y'all.<p>

Hope it wasn't too terrible! See you next time 'round.

– Phyre


End file.
